l.^"^ 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


GIP^T  OF 


Class 


( 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE 

KOSMOS. 


(Copyright,  1906.) 

BY 

DR.  S.  A.  MERRILL. 


OFTHF     *^X 

^'^IVERSJTY  ! 


"Laugh  where  you  must  be  candid  where  you  can, 
But  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

—Pope. 

"That  to   the  height   of   this  great   argument 
I    may    assert    eternal    Providence 
And  justify  the  ways  of  Qod  to  man." 

— Milton. 


New  York: 

ALDEN   BROTHERS, 

Publishers. 


\y  h 


^ 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Similations,   Integrations,  and  Harmonies 7 

Origin  of  Species ii 

What   is   Man?.. I7 

The   Infinite   Man 33 

The  Everlasting  Gospel 39 

In    the    Beginning 49 

Do  the  Scriptures  Teach  the  Doctrine  of  Reincarnation  ? . .  57 

Where  and  What  is  Heaven  ? 67 

What  Are  the  Hells? 72 

The    Spiritual    Man 88 

The   Higher   Consciousness 90 

Live   in   the   Spirit 93 

Concerning   Infestations   and   the    Casting   Out   of   Evil 

Spirits   95 

Jesus  and  Judas 104 

Progression  in  Spirit  Life 115 

Pre-existence    (poem) 125 

The  Spiritual  Universe 128 

Concerning   Sabbaths I35 

No   Missing   Links 141 

(The  Foods  of  Man  and  the  Moods  of  Man 147 

Forces  Personal  and  Impersonal 158 

Churches  and  Creeds 162 

Babylon    167 

Who  Is  Jesus? 168 

The  Mystery  of  God 170 

-Organic     172 

Differentiations     I73 

Progressions   I75 

Scraps    of   Truth i77 

India    179 

The  Metaphysiology  of  the  Spiritual  Man 182 

The  Solar  Spiritual  Worlds  That  Surround  Our  Star — 

the  Sun 185 

The   Celestial   City 189 

Man's  Place  in  the  Kosmos I93 


f  521 


"Strike  me,  but  hear  me." — Phocion. 

"The  greatest  study  of  mankind  is  man." — Pope. 

"All  are  needed  by  each  one; 
Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone." 

— Emerson. 

"Virtue  is  knowledge:  vice  is  ignorance." — Socrates. 

"Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  son  of  man  and  drink  his 
blood  ye  have  no  life  in  you.  For  my  flesh  is  meat  indeed 
and   my   blood   is   drink   indeed." — Jesus. 

"I  am  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David  and  the  bright 
and  morning  star." — Jesus. 

"As  a  man  casting  off  worn-out  garments  taketh  new  ones, 
so  the  dweller  in  the  body,  casting  off  worn-out  bodies,  enters 
into  others  that  are  new." — Buddha. 

"And  then  Bethlehem  Ephratah,  though  thou  be  small 
among  the  thousands  of  Judah,  yet  out  of  thee  shall  be  come 
fqrth  unto  me  that  is  to  be  a  ruler  in  Israel — whose  "goings 
forth"  have  been  from  of  old — from  everlasting." — Bible. 


It 


PREFACIAL. 

God  of  the  granite  and  the  rose 
The  molecule  and  the  morning  star." 


It  is  not  my  purpose  to  preface  my  book  with  a 
multiplication  of  words  which  are  very  good  foods  in 
their  ways  and  places,  but  of  little  use — like  all  other 
foods — where  used  too  much. 

There  be  some,  perhaps,  that  may  be  shocked  when 
they  see  in  the  book  a  deliberate  defence  of  such  char- 
acters as  Pharaoh  and  even  Judas,  and  little  did  I 
suppose,  when  more  than  a  half  century  ago,  as  a  stu- 
dent at  college,  I  provoked  the  indignation  of  the  dear 
old  president  by  putting  him  in  a  cul  de  sac  in  the 
class  room  for  defending  both  of  them  before  the 
class — I  little  thought  at  that  time  that  I  should  ever 
be  called  upon  more  than  a  half  century  away  to  utter 
a  word  in  their  behalf. 

But  so  it  is — has  happened  the  materialist  would 
say — ^for  Ihis  wonderful  "whirligig  of  time"  doth 
oft  bring  in  some  very  ''strange  revenges!"  So,  here 
we  are,  dear  reader,  ready  and  willing  and  pleased 
to  defend  the  man  Judas,  et  id  omne  genus  upon  the 
philosophical  high  grounds  of  a  loftier,  truer  and 
nobler  morality  than  the  dear  old  world  hath  hitherto 


PREFACIAL. 

been  able  to  receive,  for  its  judgments  are  often  not 
'^spiritually  discerned" — many  of  them. 

To  all,  and  such  especially  who  can  see  no  proper 
defence  of  the  man  we  refer  them  to  the  humble  book 
I  have  written,  which  though  abounding  with  many 
and  even  great  and  grave  faults,  will,  I  trust,  state 
the  case  fairly ;  and  let  me  hope,  also,  may  accomplish 
something — to  "justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

It  was  for  this  purpose  chiefly  that  I  undertook  to 
write  the  present  very  humble  work.  But  if  in  doing 
so  I  shall  have  contributed  anything  toward  so  noble 
an  object  I  shall  be  even  more  content.  Yea,  happier 
than  to  have  conquered  a  kingdom. 

S.  A.  M. 


/ 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


SIMILATIONS,   INTEGRATIONS   AND 
HARMONIES. 

He  who  liveth  with  and  for  himself  abideth  alone. 
"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  except  a  grain  of  wheat 
fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone.  But  if 
it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  He  who  liveth 
in  and  unto  the  life  of  the  "neighbor,"  who  hath  sent 
forth  abundantly  the  tentacles,  nerve  filaments  and 
radicles  of  his  manifold  being  into  the  lives  of  his 
fellows,  and  by  earnest  words  and  deeds  hath  con- 
verted them  into  the  living  tissues  of  nerve,  muscle 
and  ligament,  both  in  truth  and  indeed  vitally  united, 
fast  bound,  the  feeble,  finite,  perishable  microcosm  into 
the  life  of  the  Divine  Humanity;  hath  in  every  deed 
and  truth  infinitized  and  eternized  his  infinite  being  by 
intermingling  and  interblending  its  fibers  with  the 
tissues  of  the  infinite  Macrocosm — God  evermore  and 
ever  blest — the  All  and  in  All.  It  is  one  of  the  Incar- 
nations of  the  Divine  man:  for  man  is  the  Divinest 
object  in  this  mighty  universe  of  ours. 

"Abide  in  me  and  I  in  you.  .  .  .  I  am  the  Vine ; 
ye  are  the  branches.  .  .  .  If  a  man  abide  not  in  me 
he  is  cast  forth  as  a  branch  and  is  withered ;  and  men 
gather  them  and  cast  them  into  the  fire  and  they  are 
burned."  Again:  "That  they  all  may  be  One,  as 
Thou  Father  art  in  me  and  I  in  Thee;  that  they  may 
he  one  in  us"  These  utterances  are  from  the  most 
perfectly  inspired  words  that  have  ever,  as  yet,  fallen 
from  the  lips  of  man. 

No  friction  can  be  allowed  to  enter  into  the  Eterni- 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS.      . 

ties,  Infinities  and  Unities  of  the  Ever-Living  Life ;  no 
jars  or  discords  amid  the  Divine  Harmonies,  rhythms 
and  melodies,  by  which  the  bright  Hving  orbs — mate- 
rial, spiritual,  Celestial — measure  the  Infinite  years  of 
God.     Truly  saith  the  poet  Shakespeare: 

"There's  not  the  smallest  orb  that  thou  beholdest, 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubims ; 
Such  harmony  is  in  Immortal  souls; 
But  while  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  us  in  we  cannot  hear  it." 

While  in  this  social  life  of  reciprocal  and  fraternal 
loves,  utilities  and  duties,  each  and  all  occupy  different 
locations  and  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude  upon 
the  social  and  spiritual  planet — creating  those  marvel- 
ously  manifold  differentiations  in  their  original  life 
forms,  forces,  functions,  opinions,  and  in  their  mani- 
fold relations  to  the  social  kosmos,  there  is  created  a 
divinely  appointed  labor  of  Love,  for  the  united  effort 
and  patience  of  society  and  of  the  individual. 

And  here,  while  the  powers  of  the  individual  to  per- 
fect, to  save  himself,  are  in  truth  and  deed  very  limited, 
those  of  society  for  similating,  uplifting,  harmonizing 
the  individual  unto  himself  and  itself  are  practically  un- 
limited; especially  when  we  come  to  consider  as  we 
shall  by  and  bye,  the  wondrous  plan  employed  by  the 
terrestrial,  spiritual,  and  Celestial  humanities  to  de- 
stroy the  dead  Karmas  of  the  past,  and  to  create  a  new 
Karma  by  opening  the  "Gates  of  the  Future"  and 
introducing  man  into  a  new  social-spiritual  environ- 
ment and  a  new  reincarnation. 

In  order  that  we  may  more  simply  represent  to  the 
eye  the  marvelous  interdependence  of  man  upon  his 
fellow  man  for  support  and  continuity  of  life,  let  us 
take  three  perfect  cylinders,  with  perfectly  even  bases, 
such  as  are  commonly  used  for  supporting  the  fronts 
of  buildings.  Place  these  pillars  perfectly  erect  upon 
a  perfectly  level  plane  surface  and  at  the  corners  of  a 
triangle  whose  sides  are  less  than  equal  to  the  height 

8 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

of  each  cylinder.  They  will  stand  there  forever,  pro- 
vided no  force  intervenes  to  disturb  them  in  any  way, 
although  very  little  will  be  required.  But  now  let  the 
top  of  each  of  these  cylinders  be  notched  so  that  they 
shall  dovetail  each  into  the  other  when  required,  and 
let  them  at  the  same  time  be  made  to  lean  toward  each 
other  until  their  tops  meet  and  match  together  so  as 
to  form  a  triangular  pyramid,  their  bases  also  being 
beveled  to  suit  their  new  position.  It  would  now 
take  an  immense  force  to  disturb  them. 

Individually  regarded,  these  cylinders  were  the  most 
perfect  when  in  their  first  estate,  before  being  notched, 
beveled  and  made  to  lean  from  the  erect  position,  or 
the  one  in  which  all  are  bound  to  fall  without  support. 
But  now,  if  we  consider  these  several  beings  as  social 
entities,  having  similar  needs,  a  common  purpose  and 
a  common  destiny,  these  similations  and  differentia- 
tions in  their  life  forms,  which  in  the  individual  are 
blemishes  and  imperfections,  become  the  greatest 
source  of  strength,  stability,  continuity  and  harmony 
of  life  to  each  and  all  of  them,  which,  taken  together, 
no  outside  force,  not  even  an  earthquake,  can  over- 
throw or  destroy. 

In  this  way,  and  in  all  ways,  do  all  things  of  this 
marvelous  and  sublime  universe  of  God  dovetail  and 
cog  into  their  fellows;  and  thus  doth  every  soul  of 
man,  however  humble,  eventually  inosculate  its  most 
interior  veins  and  arteries,  and  interweave  and  inter- 
mingle its  nerve  filaments  with  the  life  currents,  the 
living  tissues  and  the  nerve  system  itself  of  the  infinite 
universe  of  God;  and  thus,  also,  doth  the  soul  "lose" 
itself  in  the  infinite  ocean  of  Nirvana.  In  like  manner, 
in  all  normal  and  properly  developed  life  forms  in  this 
divinely  wise  and  benignant  universe  of  the  Livins;- 
God,  each  entity  imparts  to  his  fellow  and  receives 
at  the  same  time  from  him  in  return  something  of  the 
infinite  strengths ;  and  in  all  these  universal  life  forms 
and  relationships  each  individual  g^ves  and  receives  a 
sustenance,  a  strength,  a  life  force,  an  infinitization, 
an  eternization — I  will  not  say  in  a  ratio  proportional 
to  the  cube  of  the  numbers  so  associated  together  in 

9 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

harmonic  relations — ^but  in  a  proportion  and  an  involu- 
tion of  numbers  that  run  into  the  Infinite.  Truly  says 
Emerson : 

"I  am  the  owner  of  the  sphere, 
Of  the  Milky  Way  and  the  solar  year. 
Of  Phidias'  art  and  Mozart's  strain, 
Of  Lord  Christ's  heart  and  Plato's  brain." 

If  we  take  another  example  from  the  material  life 
of  man,  and  reflect  upon  it  attentively,  we  shall  have 
another   illustration   of  that  marvelous   power  with 
which  he  is  endowed,  as  a  social  being,  to  re-duplicate 
himself  to  an  almost  infinite  extent  in  his  ability  to 
minister  to  his  own  enjoyments:    I  enter  a  restaurant 
and  sit  down  to  enjoy  a  brief  meal  that  costs  me  only 
a  few  cents;    that  meal,  which  cost  me  but  a  few 
moments  of  my  time  at  some  easy  occupation,  has  been 
brought  together — the  different  elements  of  it — from 
nearly  every  country  and  climate  under  the  stars,  and 
for  its  possibility  and  its  cheapness  has  employed  every 
ship  that  sails  the  seas,  every  train  that  crosses  the 
continents,  and  every  laborer  that  toils  for  man  under 
the  whole  heavens.      So  of  the  daily  paper  that  adds 
to  the  enjoyment  of  my  meal,  at  the  cost  of  only  two 
pence,  by  bringing  me  the  news  from  every  quarter  of 
the  globe.      It  bears  the  impress  of  the  thought,  the 
genius,  the  invention,  the  labor  and  the  capital  not 
of  this  age  only  but  of  ages. 

And  thus  doth  the  myriad-handed,  myriad-footed, 
myriad-brained  social  man  reach  forth  the  tentacles  of 
his  manifold  being  and  draw  his  maintenance  from 
the  bosom  of  the  Infinite  Being. 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES. 

The  origin  of  species,  say  my  celestial 
teachers,  consists  in  the  grafting  of  a  spirit 
form  upon  some  cognate  terrestrial  form  of 
life  that  is  living  in  gestative  conditions  with 
the  mother  at  the  time  of  its  incarnation. 

This  is  a  brief  statement  of  the  law  concerning  the 
origin  of  species,  and  places  it  in  harmony  with  the 
origin  of  all  progressive  beings  in  God's  great  universe, 
for  the  universe  is  one,  and  its  law  of  enfoldment  is 
also  one,  whether  in  material  or  spiritual  spheres  and 
estates,  since  all  forms  of  progressive  life  have  their 
origin  in  the  spiritual  world — in  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  Creator  himself. 

It  is  in  truth  by  the  cion  or  graft  that  life  proceeds 
Upon  its  long,  marvelous  and  wonder-working  way 
upward  and  onward  in  its  infinite  and  ever-progressive 
eternal  flight  through  the  infinitely  manifold  ranks, 
orders  and  systems  in  plant,  animal,  human,  spiritual, 
kosmic  and  universal,  and  by  which  life  imparts  itself  v 
to  the  innumerable  forms  which  illustrate  the  path  of 
its  long  ascent  in  the  unf oldment  of  new  forms  of  being. 
In  these  marvelous  metamorphoses  by  which  life 
ascends  from  its  most  simple  and  primeval  forms  to 
those  of  higher  and  more  complex  organization,  the 
Creative  Intelligence  proceeds  by  various  methods — 
though  the  principle  is  one — several  of  which  we  shall 
indicate  in  passing. 

The  first  is  one  employed  where  it  is  desired  to  create 
a  being  intended  simply  to  perpetuate  the  species  and 
upon  the  same  plane  of  existence  with  the  parent 
forms.  In  this  case  the  incarnating  form  or  cion  is 
a  spermatozoon,  taken  from  the  male  parent,  and  is  a 
new  being,  in  embryo,  similar  to  that  parent  and  an 
exact  copy  of  him  in  most  respects  until  brought  under 
maternal  influences. 

The  spermatozoa  are  nothing  less  than  cions  taken 
from  the  nerve  system  of  the  male  and  are  derived 
from  portions  of  that  nerve  system  that  have  been 

II 


J 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

planted  in  the  male  organs  and  fed  with  highly  stimu- 
lating foods  until  a  rudimentary  brain  has  been  devel- 
oped at  the  free  extremity,  and  the  caudal  extremity 
has  become  developed  into  the  germ  of  what  afterward 
becomes  the  spinal  cord.  This  "seed"  animal,  which 
is  so  often  referred  to  in  the  sacred  writings,  is  an 
exceedingly  minute  microscopic  copy  of  the  nerve 
system  of  the  paternal  ancestor — "a  chip  of  the  old 
block,"  in  vulgar  parlance — and  when  grown  to  adult 
years  would  be  nearly  an  exact  copy  of  that  ancestor 
in  all  cases  were  it  not  so  greatly  modified  afterward 
by  the  maternal  influences  exerted  upon  the  child  in 
utero  in  dressing  the  new  being  in  its  fleshly  robes  of  a 
lifetime. 

There  is,  however,  another  potent  cause  of  this  varia- 
tion from  paternal  resemblance  in  the  child  when 
grown  up.  It  is  where  there  is  an  incarnation  taking 
place  in  the  child  of  some  person  from  spirit  life,  for 
it  is  in  this  manner  that  great  men  are  born  to  become 
leaders  in  all  human  affairs.  Such  reincarnations  often 
increase  the  mental  and  moral  force  of  the  new  being 
many  times,  as  a  certain  Roman  said  of  Julius  Caesar : 
"Caesar  hath  in  him  many  Caius  Mariuses."  It  was  in 
this  way  that  the  whole  Jewish  people  looked  for  the 
coming  of  their  Messiah  and  also  of  Elias. 

On  a  certain  time  his  disciples  inquired  of  Jesus: 
"Why  then  say  the  tribes  and  the  Pharisees  that  Elias 
must  first  come?"  Jesus  replied:  "Elias  truly  shall 
first  come  and  restore  all  things.  But  I  say  unto  you 
that  Elias  is  come  already,  and  they  know  him  not,  but 
have  done  unto  him  whatsoever  they  listed."  Yes,  it 
is  in  this  way  that  great  men  are  created  to  become 
leaders  in  all  important  concerns  in  human  life,  and 
the  same  principle  obtains  even  in  the  lowest  realms 
of  plant  and  animal  life  in  the  evolution  of  a  new 
species.  Jesus  fully  indorses  this  doctrine  of  the  rein- 
carnation, as  the  reader  cati  easily  see  by  referring  to 
his  own  statement  in  Rev,  xxii.,  i6,  in  which  he  alludes 
to  two  of  his  own  recent  incarnations  in  plainest  terms, 
which  can  neither  be  gainsaid  nor  misunderstood:  "I 
am  the  root  and  the  oi?spring  of  David  and  the  bright 

12  J. 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

and  morning  star."  Yes,  Jesus  was  the  "bright  and 
morning  star"  of  our  civilization,  but  not  the  Infinite 
God  who  fills  immensity ;  and  what  is  more,  he  never 
authorized  any  one  to  make  so  preposterous  a  claim 
in  his  behalf. 

"I  am  the  offspring  of  David,"  said  he  to  John,  and 
truly,  though  the  Sonship  took  place  many  generations 
before  the  time  of  Joseph  and  Mary.  To  this  part 
of  the  statement  of  Jesus  the  whole  Christian  world 
will  agree  that  it  was  not  only  true,  but  that  it  was 
owing  to  the  fact  that  he  was  incarnated  in  the  family 
of  Joseph  and  Mary.  They  will  admit  the  truth  of 
the  one  incarnation,  although  it  practically  concedes 
the  whole  doctrine  of  pre-existence  and  reincarnation. 
Jesus  also  stated  furthermore  that  he  was  the  "root" 
of  David.  Now,  Webster  gives  the  word  root,  when 
applied  to  human  beings,  as  signifying  an  "ancestor," 
a  "progenitor,"  and  gives  it  no  other  significations. 
But  while  the  entire  Christian  world  will  likely  admit 
the  truth  of  the  statement  of  Jesus  that  he  was  the 
"offspring"  of  David,  they  will  refuse  to  concede  the 
truth  of  his  other  assertion  that  he  was — ^by  incarna- 
tion also — one  of  the  ancestors  of  David,  though  it 
stands  in  the  same  relation  precisely  to  the  subject  of 
the  sentence  that  the  word  offspring  does. 

Besides,  if  he  could  incarnate  in  one  world  to  help 
save  its  people,  could  he  not  also  have  performed  a 
similar  office  for  some  of  the  other  worlds  that  revolve 
about  our  solar  orb?  Why  not?  Certain  it  is  at 
least  that  he  claims  to  be  an  ancestor  of  David,  and 
to  have  been  such  he  must  of  necessity  have  incarnated 
in  the  same  family  line  as  the  one  by  which  he  entered 
the  family  of  Joseph,  who  was  a  lineal  descendant  of 
David,  as  both  the  genealogies  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
plainly  state. 

And  if  the  words  of  Jesus  be  true,  that  he  was  both 
ancestor  and  offspring  of  that  Jewish  monarch,  it  was 
by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  had  incarnated  in  the 
family  line  of  David  on.  two  different  occasions,  viz., 
once  within  historic  times  as  all  the  world  knows,  and 
also  at  some  remote  period  away  back  before  the  time 

13 


mAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

of  that  king.  With  this  view  of  the  doctrine  of  rein- 
carnation it  becomes  easy  to  understand  Jesus  when 
he  said:  "If  he  can  receive  (or  understand)  it,  this 
is  Elias,  who  was  to  come."  A  plain  intimation,  as 
he  states  in  Matthew  also,  that  John  the  Baptist  was 
a  reincarnation  of  the  prophet  Elijah. 

The  second  form  of  the  incarnating  principle  is  made 
use  of  by  the  creative  spirit  architects  where  it  is  in- 
tended to  create  new  species  by  grafting  into  some 
organ  or  other  parts  of  the  organism  of  the  animal  as 
the  nurseryman  often  inserts  a  cion  into  one  of  the 
branches  of  a  tree  instead  of  using  the  entire  tree  for 
the  reception  of  the  graft.  For  example,  the  fin  of  a 
fish,  limbs  of  quadrupeds  that  have  developed  an  abnor- 
mal number  of  limbs  or  digits  are  among  them,  many 
of  them  being  characterized  as  "freaks,"  but  they  serve 
to  illustrate  the  principle  involved  in  the  case.  The 
fossil  horse  of  many  toes  and  the  person  with  six  digits 
on  each  hand  and  foot  are  examples  of  this  law. 

The  serpent,  with  its  most  perfect  spinal  column,  is 
the  basic  form  for  the  evolution  of  all  quadrupedal  and 
bipedal  forms  of  animal  life  on  the  globe.  The  nor- 
mal number  of  digits  for  the  mammalia,  and  even  for 
the  reptilia,  appears  to  be  five.  But  instances  have 
been  known  where  entire  families  of  human  beings 
have  been  provided  with  six  instead  of  the  normal 
number,  five. 

This  would  appear  to  indicate  the  intervention  of  a 
new  law  whereby  one  or  more  of  the  digital  nerves  has 
been  removed  from  the  nerve  system  of  the  animal. 
This  could  not  take  place  if  the  Creative  Wisdom  had 
not  created  examples  to  teach  man  the  nature  and  the 
operation  of  the  laws  in  manifold  and  multiform  ways. 

We  have  a  very  interesting  illustration  of  this  law 
in  the  African  elephant,  which  has  but  three  toes  upon 
each  foot,  or  two  less  than  the  normal  number.  The 
third,  and  one  of  the  greatest,  of  these  laws  that  govern 
the  morphology  of  the  animal  and  plant  world  is  by 
the  principle  of  elimination,  an  example  of  the  opera- 
tion of  which  law  we  may  see  in  the  animal  we  have 
just  introduced.     This  elephant,  when  he  was  evolved 

44 


^^MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

ifrom  his  paternal  ancestor,  appears  to  have  lost  two  of 
his  ancestral  toes  by  elimination  or  by  dropping  two 
of  the  nerves  that  supply  the  toes  on  each  foot. 

The  African  elephant,  we  believe,  is  a  smaller  and 
less  powerful  animal  than  the  Asiatic,  more  wild  and 
ferocious  in  disposition,  but  has  powers  of  "survival" 
quite  equal,  probably,  to  those  of  the  other.  If  the 
Asiatic  shall  ultimately  survive  his  African  cousin,  it 
will  likely  be  owing  to  his  greater  gentleness  and  intel- 
ligence that  recommend  him  to  civilized  man  by  his 
greater  usefulness. 

Another  very  interesting  example  of  the  law  of 
changes  that  governs  the  morphology  of  animal  life 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Asiatic  and  African  rhinoceros. 
One  of  them — ^the  Asiatic,  we  believe — ^has  but  one 
horn,  while  the  other  one  has  two.  This  example  also 
supplies  a  potent  argument  against  the  Darwinian  prin- 
ciple of  evolution,  with  its  rigid  system  of  development 
along  certain  absolutely  fixed  lines. 

Unlike  most  other  horned  animals,  its  horns  are 
placed  one  in  front  of  the  other,  along  the  line  of 
spinal  axis,  instead  of  having  them  placed  at  right 
angles  with  the  line  of  the  major  axis,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  cow,  the  deer,  and  other  horned  animals. 

It  can  only  appear  to  be  the  result  of  arbitrary  and 
intelligent  interference  from  some  outside  force,  and 
not  to  be  the  result  of  infinitesimal  increments  of 
change  and  of  growth  accumulated  through  vast  ages. 

The  domestic  cow  is  another  illustrative  example 
in  some  ways  of  the  operation  of  the  metamorphic  prin- 
ciple in  the  transformation  of  animal  forms,  both  by 
elimination  and  by  transformation.  She  has  four  toes 
on  each  foot,  but  two  of  them  are  rudimentary  in 
form  and  have  been  transposed  in  their  position  ,to 
the  under  and  lower  portion  of  the  leg  and  are  not 
used  in  locomotion  at  all. 

In  many  cases  the  cow  supplies  us  with  a  very  inter- 
esting example  of  the  principle  of  metamorphosis  by 
elimination.  It  is  found  in  the  "muley"  or  "polled'' 
ox  that  is  entirely  destitute  of  horns.  That  the  ordi- 
nary horned  cow  will  at  times  bring  forth  offspring 

15 


MAN'S  PLACE   IN   THE   KOSMOS. 

that  is  wholly  destitute  of  horns,  and  in  neighborhoods 
where  no  male  animal  of  this  hornless  breed  is  to  be 
found,  we  have  abundant  evidence  both  from  personal 
knowledge  and  from  the  observations  of  others  with 
whom  we  have  spoken.  We  recall  a  case  of  the  kind 
that  occurred  on  the  home  place  of  my  father  when 
I  was  a  lad  of  twelve  years.  It  was  an  example  of  a 
baby  calf  without  horns,  from  a  mother  with  an  ample 
head  of  horns,  there  being  no  male  of  that  variety  in 
all  that  section  of  Illinois. 

I  have  conversed  with  an  old  friend  of  mine — Judge 
v.,  of  this  place — who  lived  in  the  State  of  Indiana 
in  the  early  times.  The  judge  informs  me  that  he  has 
known  of  a  number  of  similar  cases  originating  under 
similar  conditions,  all  of  which  were  females,  as  was 
true  of  the  other  example  to  which  I  have  just  referred. 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  plant  world,  we  shall 
see  some  interesting  examples  of  plants  retrogressing 
toward  ancestral  conditions — a  form  of  atavism — 
whereby  the  plant  becomes  greatly  transformed  from 
original  conditions.  This  is  the  case  with  the  common 
wheat  plant,  triticiim  vulgare. 

We  have  known  whole  fields  of  this  grain,  sown 
upon  ground  entirely  new  and  with  the  best  seed,  that, 
in  the  low  places  where  water  stood  more  or  less  upon 
the  young  plants  in  winter,  and  freezing  and  thawing 
more  or  less  in  the  winter,  were  transformed  into 
chess,  or  cheat,  as  usually  termed. 

Professor  Loveland,  of  Summerland,  Cal.,  informs 
me  that  the  barley  plant  {hordeum  vul.)  in  this  State 
often  undergoes  a  similar  transformation  under  un- 
favorable  conditions. 

These  metamorphoses  in  the  life  of  plants  are  per- 
sistent and  permanent  and  must  be  regarded  as  new 
species  of  plant  life — as  much  so  as  the  Asiatic  ele- 
phant and  rhinoceros  and  the  African  elephant  and 
rhinoceros  are  distinct  species. 

We  have  known  similar  transformations  to  take 
place  in  the  stramonium  plant  {datura  stramonium) 
and  in  other  phases  of  plant  life. 

We  now  come  to  a  more  important  part  of  our  sub- 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

ject,  viz.,  the  formation  and  grafting  of  nations.  For 
this  purpose,  war,  dreadful  as  it  is  in  many  of  its 
aspects  has  been  the  instrument  chosen  by  the  higher 
powers  who  have  superintended  the  evolution  of  civil- 
ization to  accomplish  the  work. 

It  was  by  transplanting  the  Norsemen  or  men  of 
the  north,  first  from  their  lairs  amid  the  icebergs  of 
the  frozen  north,  where  they  had  developed  an  im- 
mense energy  of  body  and  of  mind  from  long  battling 
with  its  cold,  its  hardships  and  privations,  into  the 
sunny  plains  of  Normandy,  where  they  became  Nor- 
mans and  afterward  into  the  "right  tight  little  isle" 
of  England. 


WHAT   IS   MAN? 

Such  was  the  question  propounded  by  the  afHicted 
Sage  more  than  three  thousand  years  ago  and  in  all 
probability  had  been  a  subject  of  inquiry  coeval  with 
the  existence  of  man  upon  the  world  long  ere  the  man 
Job  had  opened  his  eyes  to  the  light  of  it. 

Indeed  it  has  become  the  question  of  questions  for 
the  solution  of  man  and  far  outweighs  all  others  that 
can  command  his  attention,  and  far  transcends  all 
riddles  that  Sphinx  ever  propounded.  And  solve  it  he 
must,  or  perish.  Yes,  it  is  the  puzzle,  the  hitherto 
insoluble  mystery  that  has  cast  its  mighty  and  myste- 
rious shadow  over  the  untold  ages  of  men's  tenancy 
of  the  planet. 

"Star-Eyed  Science"  bows  her  head  in  the  presence 
of  the  mighty  question  and  confesses  herself  inadequate 
to  the  solution  of  this  world's  greatest  and  most  inter- 
esting and  important  inquiry  ever  submitted  to  the 
attention  of  mankind.  But  "The  greatest  study  of 
mankind  is  Man,"  and  like  many  another  "impossibil- 
ity" that  has  long  since  been  solved  and  shelved,  it 

17 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

will  in  God's  own  good  time  be  revealed  to  man  in  all 
its  wonderful,  divine  beauty  and  glory.  Yes,  what  is 
the  purpose  for  which  man  was  and  is  created  ?  What 
is  his  rank  in  creation? 

What  part  does  he  bear  amid  the  vast  forces  that 
play  the  mighty  game  of  Life  in  World  and  Universe? 
Apparently  evolved  from  protoplasm,  or  dirt  ("And 
the  Lord  God  formed  man  from  the  dust  of  the  ground 
and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life,'*  Gen. 
ii.,  7),  he  has  gradually  ascended  through  all  ranks 
and  forms  of  life  from  moneron  to  man,  and  from 
man  to  the  God. 

Man,  as  a  being  of  many  Incarnations,  is  a  spiritual 
kephaloid  and,  for  a  marvel,  doth  not  lose  his  individu- 
ality by  his  incarnations  with  other  souls  of  equal 
or  like  degree,  though  undergoing  certain  modifications 
by  his  new  relationships  thus  formed,  among  which  are 
a  greater  intensity  and  potentialization  of  his  entire 
being. 

This,  when  properly  understood,  will  serve  to  ex- 
plain why  it  is  that  many  persons  of  advanced  intelli- 
gence are  able  to  converse  at  once  with  a  number  of 
others,  or  to  dictate  to  several  amanuenses,  at  the  same 
moment  of  time,  the  several  personalities  maintaining 
their  respective  individualities  all  the  while. 

Such  persons,  by  repeated  Reincarnations,  became 
endowed  with  poly-mentation,  or  many  beings  grouped 
in  one,  and  without  any  loss  of  their  proper  indi- 
viduality. 

Manifestly  a  created  being  of  very  high  and  pro- 
gressed conditions,  as  we  are  obliged  to  consider  him 
both  from  reason  and  from  the  Scriptures,  since 
reason  cannot  see  any  place  in  the  long  chain  of  evolu- 
tion by  which  the  full-orbed  man  could  find  any  hold 
or  lodgment  in  any  of  the  ascending  forms  and  series 
that  were  concerned  in  his  development  wherewith 
he  could  be  incarnated  until  the  evolved  and  evolving 
being  should  arrive  at  the  physical  "image  and  likeness" 
of  man  himself — ^had  attained  the  appropriate  human 
plane. 

He  must  have  been  created  for  some  indispensable 

18 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS, 

use  and  function  in  God's  great  universe.  The  con- 
clusion is  inevitable,  that  his  presence  in  universal 
life  in  all  his  conditions,  past,  present  and  future,  is 
neither  a  misfortune  nor  a  mistake,  and  the  Creator 
had  no  necessity  to  apologize  for  his  work.  The 
work  of  evolution  has  been  carried  forward  in  a 
systematic,  orderly  and  Providential  way,  in  which 
all  the  foods,  forms,  forces,  means  and  methods  that 
were  required  to  bring  him  up  to  his  present  status 
were  fully  anticipated  and  provided  for.  Nothing 
was  employed  in  the  mighty  work  that  was  not  abso- 
lutely necessary,  and  nothing  was  overlooked  that  was 
indispensable  to  its  accomplishment  in  perfect  time 
and  way. 

Yes,  man  is  a  fixed  and  indispensable  part  and 
the  chief  factor  in  the  evolution  of  the  mighty  worlds 
and  universes  by  which  he  finds  himself  environed  on 
every  hand,  and  as  necessary  to  the  gods  and  to  their 
universes  as  they  are  to  him.  ("All  things  were  made 
by  Him,  and  without  him  was  not  anything  made  th^t 
was  made.")  And  neither  chance,  caprice,  chaos, 
world,  flesh  or  devil  have  had  aught  to  do  with  the 
work  of  the  Creators  except  to  help  it  forward. 

Yes,  Creation  is  the  eternal  procedure  and  mani- 
festation of  Law.  But  Law  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  the  preconceived  and  pre-established  plan,  pur- 
pose, health  and  harmony  that  always  existed  in  the 
Divine  Mind  (Holo-cosmos)  and  in  the  divine  man 
or  Micro-cosmos.  In  other  words.  Creation  is  only 
the  steady  and  orderly  outgrowth  of  life  forms  under 
Lazv,  and  Law  is  only  an  expression  of  the  Divine 
Will,  Intelligence,  Love  and  Wisdom  operating  in 
Time,  Space,  Force  and  Matter  in  the  evolution  of 
men,  of  Worlds  and  of  Universes  under  the  directive 
agency  and  potency  of  the  Supreme  Intelligence  (or 
Holo-cosmos)  that  presides  over  the  Creation  of  all 
things.  That  it  has  appeared  otherwise  to  mankind  in 
past  ages  is  due  to  his  mental  and  moral  destitution 
in  his  Spiritual  Babyhood,  when  he  was  "naked"  and 
destitute  of  all  spiritual  forms  with  which  to  clothe 

19 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS, 

himself — and  when  he  was  little  else  than  the  spiritual 
larva  of  a  man. 

Yes,  it  was  due  in  greatest  measure  to  this  almost 
absolute  lack  of  perception  of  the  meaning  of  the 
forms  of  Spiritual  Law,  and  at  a  time  when  the  creeds 
and  the  beliefs  of  mankind  were  in  the  process  of 
formation.  "Therefore  speak  I  to  them  in  parables; 
because  they,  seeing — materially  and  literally — see  not 
spiritually,  and  hearing — literally — ^they  hear  not 
spiritually;  neither  do  they  understand." 

That  these  things  should  be  so  is  what  we  ought 
naturally  to  expect  as  we  look  backward  through  the 
long,  dim,  uncertain  twilight  of  past  ages  to  learn  the 
data  from  which  mankind  have  formulated  most  of  the 
creeds  and  the  faiths  that  still  continue  to  exert  so 
vast  and  mighty  influence  over  the  minds  and  the 
hearts  of  men  in  this  wonderful  age,  when  the  Various 
material  sciences  and  the  spiritual  philosophies  and 
sciences  have  made  so  great  an  advance  along  the  lines 
of  universal  progress.  Yes,  we  are  therefore  obliged 
to  conclude  not  only  that  man  is  a  iixed  fact  and 
factor  in  Universal  Life,  and  that  he  has  been  evolved 
through  a  long  line  of  ascent  from  the  very  humblest 
and  feeblest  beginnings  of  Life  on  the  globe ;  and  that 
his  creation  has  been  the  result  of  the  operations  of 
Divine t  Angelic  Intelligence  and  Wisdom,  which 
Science  terms  Law — ^which  perfect  Law  is  but  an 
expression  in  Time,  Space  and  Substance  of  Spiritual 
forms  that  pre-existed  in  the  Divine,  Infinite,  Creative 
Mind  itself — as  much  so  and  by  the  same  law  as  the 
painting  the  palace  and  the  statue  pre-existed  in  the 
xninds  of  their  artists  before  they  began  the  practical 
work. 

We  are  furthermore  obliged  to  believe  that  all  things 
that  concern  the  welfare  and  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind were  anticipated  and  determined,  weighed, 
measured  and  perfectly  understood  and  were  evolved 
by  steps  that  were  foreknown,  foreintended  and  fore- 
ordained, and  that  there  is  no  event  or  movement  of 
genuine  interest  to  human  kind  taking  place  in  the 

20 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

world,  that  the  Creator  does  not  fully  sanction,  approve 
and  determine,  he  himself  being  the  author  of  it. 

And  this  is  absolutely  true  not  alone  of  great 
measures  and  movements  that  take  form  and  place 
under  the  direction  of  so-called  wise  and  good  men, 
but  also  all  important  movements  and  events  that 
originate  with  what  are  usually  termed  evil  men.  All 
are  "raised  up,"  foreordained  and  set  to  work  by 
the  Creative  Wisdoms,  as  the  Angel  informed  Daniel : 
"That  the  living  may  know  that  the  Most  High 
ruleth  in  the  kingdom  of  men  and  giveth  it  to  whom- 
soever He  will:  and  setteth  up  over  it  the  basest  of 
men!"  For  the  Lord  hath  need  of  men  of  had  morals 
as  well  as  good  in  the  accomplishment  of  His  vast 
purposes  in  the  evolution  and  perfection  of  the  Divine 
Humanity.  And  where  good  men  will  not  answer 
his  requirements  he  employs  even  the  "basest  of  men." 
"For  His  ways  are  not  our  ways,  nor  our  ways  His 
ways."  Said  Jehovah  to  Pharaoh,  who  was  one  of 
the  basest  and  most  tyrannical  of  human  rulers :  "For 
this  purpose  have  I  raised  thee  up." 

Christians  have  hardly  yet  begun  to  understand 
and  to  appreciate  the  vast  and  indispensable  service 
that  the  man  Judas  conferred  upon  the  Christian  re- 
ligion by  taking  the  darkest  part  in  the  dark  back- 
ground of  the  mighty  picture  of  the  mightiest,  the 
grandest,  and,  we  may  add,  also  the  most  glorious 
tragedy  since  time  and  world  began,  by  endowing  it 
with  the  wings  of  the  hatreds  as  well  as  the  loves 
of  mankind  to  bear  forth  into  the  world  and  into  the 
deeps  of  the  hearts  and  the  lives  of  men  the  marvelous 
story  of  the  Cross  and  into  every  clime  and  country 
the  world  over. 

"That  the  Scripture  might  be  fulfilled !"  Yea,  more : 
that  the  grand  and  glorious  purposes  of  the  eternal 
God  might  be  fulfilled,  and  that  the  sublime  story 
of  the  Cross  might  be  duly  advertised  and  go  forth 
to  the  spiritual  conquest  of  mankind  endowed  with  a 
divine  power  and  energy  to  accomplish  its  wonderful 
and  glorious  mission  I 

For  I   take  it  that  this  greatest  of  the  world's 

21 


"MAN'S  PLACE  IN,  THE  KOSMOS. 

tragedies,  of  the  man  Jesus  hanging  upon  the  cross 
of  Jew  and  gentile,  and  forgiving  and  praying  for 
his  tormentors  who  put  him  there :  and  the  man  Judas, 
who  betrayed  him,  also  hanging  on  a  cross,  the  crea- 
tion of  his  own  remorse  at  beholding  the  results  of 
his  own  hands  in  the  work  of  creating  the  other:  the 
combined  and  contrasted  elements  of  the  wondrous 
tragedy  in  all  its  wonderful  aspects — form  a  picture 
at  once  the  most  unique  and  impressive;  yea,  the 
greatest,  grandest  Bulletin  ever  set  up  in  this  little 
world  of  ours,  and  hath  armed  the  mighty  picture  with 
a  magic  power  and  influence  over  the  hearts  and  the 
lives  of  men  everywhere  that  no  other  arrangement 
of  the  celestial  programme  for  the  salvation  of  man- 
kind could  have  imparted  to  it. 

"And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  shall  draw 
all  men  unto  me !"  Yea,  how  marvelously  true !  The 
real  part  that  poor  Judas  played  in  this  sublime  tragedy 
of  a  world  has  never  yet  been  told !  But  it  will  be 
in  all  due  time.  For  he  also,  like  Pharaoh,  was 
"raised  up'' — incarnated  to  play  the  (seeming)  base 
though  indispensable  role  of  treason  in  this  sad,  strange, 
eventful  drama  of  Universal  Life.  As  truly  so  as  was 
Jesus  himself,  who  was  incarnated  to  enact  the  greater, 
grander  and  more  glorious  part  upon  Calvary  in  be- 
half of  mankind. 

But  let  us  inquire.  What  is  the  real  purpose  for 
which  man  is  created,  by  whom  and  for  whom  un- 
numbered worlds  are  created  and  innumerable  worlds 
are  also  destroyed  when  they  have  fulfilled  their  sub- 
Hme  purposes  in  the  service  of  Gods  and  men;  when 
from  untold  ages  and  uses  they  are  no  longer  needed  ? 
Yea,  what  are  the  real  ends  and  uses  that  man  sub- 
serves in  the  functions  and  economies  of  World  and 
Universe?  For  these  worlds  that  nightly  parade  the 
starry  heavens  without  number  are  in  very  deed  and 
truth  the  nurseries  in  which  the  Baby  Gods  are  born 
and  bred,  as  is  apparent  both  from  reason  and  from 
Scripture.  They  are  created  by  the  Gods  of  the 
manifold  societies  and  Fatherhoods  of  the  Spiritual 
and  Celestial  worlds,  and  that  preside  over  the  forma- 

22 


'  WAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

tion  and  destiny  of  men  and  of  worlds,  and  for  like 
reasons  that  earthly  parents  create  families — to  pro- 
vide the  means  and  the  instrumentalities  for  the  per- 
petuity of  their  own  earthly  lives  when  past  their 
labors  and  require  the  aid  of  offspring  to  sustain  their 
life  powers  until  they  pass  on  to  the  higher  planes 
of  immortality. 

But  these  comparisons  apply  correspondentially,  not 
absolutely  and  literally.  These  young  infant  Gods  that 
swarm  over  and  fill  unnum^bered  worlds  are  created  by 
the  paternal  Gods  to  provide  the  means  for  the  per- 
petuation of  their  own  spiritual  existence,  and  hold 
a  correspondential  relation  to  them  that  the  children 
of  earthly  parentage  supply  for  the  continuation  of 
the  earthly  existence  of  father  and  mother,  until  the 
next  kosmic  change  (of  death)  tenders  it  no  longer 
needful. 

**Lo,  all  grow  old  and  die.''  It  is  the  law  that  rules 
in  all  the  worlds.  There  is  nothing)  that  can  be 
organized  so  perfectly  that  it  cannot  be  c?^-organized 
and  wn-created  by  reversing  the  conditions  under 
which  it  came  into  existence.  It  could  only  be  ac- 
complished by  an  entire  arrest  of  all  change  within 
itself,  and  that  would  be  death.  We  here  quote  the 
words  of  the  Buddha  in  this  connection: 

"As  a  man  casting  off  old,  worn-out  garments  puts 
on  new  ones,  in  like  manner  doth  the  person  who 
putteth  off  old  bodies  clothe  himself  in  those  that  are 
new." 

This  law  applies  to  the  spiritual  body  correspon- 
dentially in  a  degree. 

The  Spiritual  body  or  Psyche  of  man  is  as  mucK 
a  created  and  an  organic  entity  as  is  the  Soma  or 
material  body,  and  both  are  subject  to  a  similar  law  of 
change,  though  the  former  exists  under  more  lasting 
conditions,  but  never  under  conditions  of  absolute 
eternality  save  under  the  heneiicent  Cyclic  Law  of  Re- 
incarnation. For  progress  in  the  spiritual  realm  con- 
sists not  in  perpetual  motion  in  straight  lines.  All 
things  of  the  universe  move  in  curves  and  cycles  and 
are  forever  returning  to  their  original  point  of  depart* 

23 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

ure  to  renew  and  refresh  their  being  in  primeval 
conditions. 

Were  anybody  obliged  to  move  on  forever  in 
straight  Hnes,  it  would  soon  pass  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  habitable  Universe,  or,  worse  still,  it  would 
soon  collide  with  some  other  part  of  Creation,  with 
ruinous  results.  But  all  this  is  averted  by  the  beautiful 
cyclic  law  of  renewal  and  return  to  primeval  con- 
ditions and  estates,  so  that  all  things  of  this  great 
and  glorious  Universe  move  one  in  Celestial,  Divine 
Harmony. 

We  can  now  perhaps  begin  to  comprehend  the  fact 
that  even  the  very  Gods  themselves  are  subject  to  this 
beneficent  law  of  change,  of  renewal,  of  progress,  and 
by  the  equally  important  law  of  waste  and  decay,  and 
even  of  death  itself,  every  unused  faculty  of  mind 
or  of  body  alike  must  have  active  and  constant  exer- 
cise or  it  will  gradually  weaken  and  tend  to  ultimate 
extinction,  and,  like  the  eyes  of  the  once  eyed  but 
now  eyeless  fishes  of  Mammoth  Cave  and  other  sub- 
terranean waters,  end  in  their  final  extinction. 

Hence  arises  the  necessity  for  the  renewal  of  the 
Spiritual  man  in  terrestrial  conditions  at  certain  vast 
kosmic  periods  of  time,  the  ordinary  extent  of  which 
for  the  adult  man  may  be  a  thousand  years,  which  is 
the  period  assigned  to  it  by  Plato;  and  the  Milennial 
era  given  to  it  by  John  in  the  Apocalypse,  during 
which  the  saints — those  who  lived  this  life  in  normal 
states — "will  live  and  reign  with  Christ  a  thousand 
years."  But  which  the  wicked — ^those  who  lived  this 
life  under  less  normal  conditions — will  not  share  with 
them,  being  withheld  by  the  evils  they  lived  into  this 
life  by  a  long  stay  in  the  lower  spheres  to  live  out 
and  free  themselves  from  those  conditions  before  they 
can  enter  the  higher  spheres. 

The  two  periods  are  one  and  the  same.  Hence 
arises  the  perpetual  demand  for  new  bodies  to  refresh 
and  renew  the  clothing — ^that  is,  the  bodies  of  the 
Gods  or  higher  Celestial,  angelic  men ;  for  the  bodies 
of  men,  both  material  as  well  as  spiritual,  are  vestures 
in  which  the  spirit  clothes  itself,  and  must  be  refreshed 

24 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

and  renewed  at  certain  remote  cyclic  periods  of  time, 
as  the  terrestrial  man  renews  his  garments  from  time 
to  time — ^bjy  incarnating  in  new  bodies — or  death 
will  ultimately  result.  Hence,  as  already  stated,  the 
constant  and  eternal  demand  for  new  beings,  new 
men  and  women,  who  are  nothing  more  than  new 
spiritujal  suits  of  clothing  required  by  the  higher 
Gods  of  the  race  to  renew,  reinvigorate  and  re-eter- 
nize their  spiritual  forms,  when  worn  and  wasted  from 
too  long  stay  amid  the  glories  and  the  splendors  of 
the  upper  day. 

That  the  spiritual  body  is  a  destructible  entity  even 
the  Scriptures  teach.  *'Fear  Him  who  is  able  to  de- 
stroy both  soul  and  body  in  Hell!" 

For  the  Gods  themselves  are  but  the  organic, 
spiritual,  cell  life  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  their 
forms,  when  worn  and  wasted  from  long  residence 
and  use  amid  the  intense  activities  and  splendors  of 
the  more  potively  polaric  conditions  of  the  higher 
Celestial,  Spiritual  Universes,  must  take  an  outing 
once  in  a  long  while,  like  a  resident  of  city  life  in  our 
own  little  world,  to  rest  and  refresh  and  renew  their 
overtaxed  spiritual  powers  amid  the  easy,  self-indul- 
gent, spiritually  relaxing  forces  of  the  negatively 
polaric  lower  planes  of  being. 

The  ultimate  appropriation  of  the  spiritual  forms 
of  the  men  and  the  women  for  these  marvelous  uses 
of  reincarnating  with  the  higher  Gods  of  the  race — 
the  men  and  the  women  whom  we  behold  every  day 
in  such  vast  numbers  making  their  "exits  and  their 
entrances"  upon  this  "Bank  and  Shoal  of  Time"  after 
a  brief  stay  upon  the  material  planes  of  existence — 
explains  the  reason  why  it  is  that  this  great  and- 
marvelous  Universe  of  the  Eternal  God,  already  and 
always  infinite,  is  not  necessarily  increasing  in  a  new 
infinity  of  spiritual  populations  and  in  spiritual  worlds 
to  take  care  of  them,  which  would  be  true  were  every 
human  being  that  enters  and  exits  from  this  stage 
of  time  and  world  is  a  novus  homo  or  "new  man." 

When  the  new  spiritual  being — ^the  Son — that  has 
been  created  by  manifold  terrestriations  or  involu- 

25 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

tlons  in  the  worlds  of  matter  until  he  has  attained 
the  spiritual  stature  of  the  "Father"  to  a  degree, 
though  in  less  celestial  forms  of  the  life  forces,  a 
mutual  reincarnation  takes  place,  or,  more  exactly 
speaking,  the  "Father"  incarnates  in  the  "Son,"  since 
it  was  for  this  purpose  the  Son  was  created  hy  the 
Father  for  the  new  creation  and  perpetuation  of  his 
own  being  and  to  prepare  him  to  enter  upon  a  new 
cycle  and  a  new  life  of  enjoyment  and  of  labor  amid 
the  infinities  and  eternities  of  Life  Universal.  And 
this  is  what  is  meant  by  the  ''reconciliation''  of  the 
Son  with  the  Father.  It  is  the  harmonization  of  the 
twain  "m  and  into  one  new  man"  by  the  Son's  attain- 
ment of  the  spiritual  estates  of  the  Father,  and  thus  to 
be  able  to  incarnate  with  him  in  a  new  life  for  both 
Father  and  Son. 

"Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for  them  also 
who  shall  believe  on  me  through  their  word :  that  they 
all  may  be  one  as  their  Father  art  in  me  and  I  in 
thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us."  But  this  is 
the  Social,  Spiritual  form  of  the  Divine  incarnations 
of  men  and  Gods,  which  is  less  ontological  and  inti- 
mate in  form  and  character  than  is  the  personal  and 
individual  form  thereof. 

Into  this  divine  celestial  Unity  of  the  "twain-in-one" 
the  Son  brings  up  from  the  lower  material  Universes 
new  life  forms  and  forces;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  Father  brings  thereinto  the  Celestial,  spiritual 
forces  and  forms  of  the  higher  Worlds  and  Universes. 
Each  imparts  to  the  other  an  endowment  of  new 
forces,  both  in  kind  and  in  degree,  and  each  aids  in 
eternizing  the  twain  now  being,  now  become  one. 
"And  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life." 

Hath  not  the  prophet  Micah,  referring  to  Jesus,  well 
said:  "And  thou  Bethlehem,  though  thou  art  least 
among  the  thousands  of  Judah,  yet  out  of  thee  shall 
he  come  forth  unto  me  that  is  to  be  a  ruler  in  Israel, 
whose  ''goings  forth  have  been  from  of  old — ^from 

EVERLASTING." 

In  Bhagavard  Gita  Krishna  the  inspired  Hindu 
prophet  applies  a  similar  term  to  the  cyclic  evolutions 

26 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

of  all  being.  "I  am  the  going  forth  of  the  whole 
Universe,  and  likewise  its  dissolving.  He  who,  cast- 
ing off  the  body,  goeth  forth  thinking  of  me,  ho 
entereth  into  my  being."  And  thus  the  beloved 
Christ:  ''And  now,  O  Father,  glorify  thou  me  with 
the  glory  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was." 
"Many  births  have  been  left  behind  by  me  and  by 
thee,  O  Arguna.  I  know  them  all,  but  thou  knowest 
not  yet  even  thine  own." 

"Heaven  from  all  creatures  hides  the  book  of  fate, 
All  but  the  page  prescribed,  their  present  state." 

Yes,  it  is  a  truth,  and  a  very  merciful  one,  that  the 
gates  of  both  the  future  and  the  past  are  benignly 
closed  to  mankind  in  his  present  mundane  estates  and 
conditions,  which  are  germinal  in  their  character  and 
function. 

Were  the  Seed,  when  planted  in  the  earth,  to  be 
long  exposed  to  the  solar  rays,  it  would  shortly  perish. 
But  man  in  this  terrene  existence  is  but  a  seed  that 
is  germinating  in  the  soil  and  underworld  of  the  earth, 
and  any  exposure  of  him  to  the  unveiled  splendors  and 
glories  of  the  higher  life  would  affect  him  in  a  similar 
manner — unfit  him  for  any  further  life  in  the  lower 
spheres.  He  was  planted  here  in  the  proper  soil  of 
earth  to  germinate  and  to  grow  up  within  himself  in 
basic  and  in  most  interior  conditions  the  mighty 
spiritual  and  celestial  laws  and  principles  of  the  higher 
worlds  of  his  being. 

Were  he  permitted  to  know  the  splendors  and  the 
glories  amid  which  he  has  lived  in  his  past  spiritual 
estates,  he  would  be  prone  to  live  in  much  sorrow  and 
discontent  from  contrasting  the  two  forms  of  his 
existence,  past  and  present. 

Thousands,  yea  millions,  would  cast  aside  their 
bodies  and  rush  into  the  other  life  before  the  proper 
time,  in  some  momentary  fit  of  madness — a  step  most 
fatal  to  their  future  happiness  and  well-being,  as  vast 
numbers  in  this  unhappy  age  of  suicides,  war  and 
murder  will  find  to  their  cost. 

27 


WAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

It  is,  in  truth,  a  salutary  mystery  that  the  Creator 
has  for  this  reason  suspended  over  the  gates  of  the 
future  to  restrain  men  from  accompHshing  their  own 
ruin.  Let  us  take  God's  way  into  the  great  and 
glorious  future  and  abide  his  own  good  time. 

Spiritualism,  or  free  intercourse  between  the  two 
worlds,  was  permitted  by  the  Angelic  Wisdoms  at  the 
time  it  came ;  first  to  the  Shaker  Friends,  in  1837,  and 
was  designed  by  them  for  the  benefit  of  the'  "Skeptics 
and  doubting  Thomases,"  who  could  not  believe  on  the 
testimony  of  men  who  lived  two  thousand  years  ago, 
and  needed  fresh  this  year  facts  to  get  rid  of  their 
unbelief. 

Spiritualism  had  been  suppressed  by  the  Jewish 
authorities  of  the  times  of  Saul  and  David,  prompted, 
doubtless,  by  the  Higher  Authorities  of  the  spiritual 
world,  speaking  through  the  prophets.  It  was  also 
practically  suppressed,  after  the  advent  of  Christianity, 
by  the  Catholic  priesthood,  inspired  by  the  same  source, 
it  being  the  intent  and  purpose  of  the  spiritual  leaders 
of  civilization  that  those  nations  who  were  in  any  im- 
portant way  concerned  with  the  origin  and  spread 
of  the  Christian  religion  should  not  be  permitted  to 
have  spiritualism  introduced  among  them  until  they, 
or  the  majority  of  them,  at  least,  had  attained  a 
mental,  spiritual  and  a  scientific  status  that  would 
enable  them  to  "handle"  the  subject  without  injury  to 
themselves  and  to  mankind. 

That  the  inhibition  will  be  removed  ere  long  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  and  that  the  clergy  will  no  longer 
oppose  the  return  to  the  apostolic  practices  of  healing 
and  of  casting  out  even  of  evil  spirits  we  think  there 
can  be  little  serious  doubt.  The  entire  priesthood — 
save  a  few — for  ages  have  cast  aside  the  words  of 
the  Master  as  recorded  by  Mark  xv. :  16-18,  and  as 
a  result  have  fallen  into  much  unbelief  concerning  both 
the  words  and  the  works  of  Jesus. 

That  the  Higher  Wisdoms  of  the  spiritual  world 
have  seen  proper  to  suspend  these  practices  in  the 
churches  during  the  greater  portion  of  man's  spiritual 
infancy,  and  for  wise  reasons  that  have  been  already 

28 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS, 

given,  there  can  also  be  very  little  reason  to  doubt. 

Our  clerical  friends  will,  however,  be  obliged  to 
give  up  their  opposition  to  the  practical  operation  of 
these  important  principles  that  so  vitally  concern 
human  welfare,  or  they  will  ere  long  find  their  audi- 
ences thinning  out  faster  than  ever. 

The  subject  of  the  possession  and  the  infestation 
of  mortals  by  spirit  men  is  a  vast  one,  and  one  that 
can  be  fully  and  finally  understood  by  a  long  and 
patient  and  intelligent  study  of  it  from  both  sides 
of  the  life  of  man.  It  is  the  active  cause  of  most  of 
the  insanities  that  fill  our  asylums  and  send  great 
numbers  to  the  grave  of  the  suicide  and  the  assassin. 

That  the  beloved  Christ  was  right,  and  wonderfully 
so  when  he  professed  to  cast  out  evil  spirits  and  devils, 
who  by  their  arts  and  practices  had  obtained  magnetic 
control  of  certain  sensitive  and  weak-will  elements  of 
the  human  family,  who  also,  being  ignorant  of  these 
concealed  foes  and  their  works  and  ways,  there  cart 
be  no  doubt  to  one  who  has  studied  this  very  difficult 
question  from  a  rational  and  impartial  standpoint. 

The  beloved  Teacher  made  this  subject  of  the  cast- 
ing out  of  evil  spirits  a  matter  of  special  instruction 
and  injunction  upon  his  disciples,  and  at  one  time 
severely  upbraided  two  of  them  because  they  could 
not  cast  them  out.  That  many  skeptical  minds  will 
ridicule  the  views  of  Christ  in  regard  to  these  things 
and  attribute  them  to  his  lack  of  science  and  all  that. 
But  the  clergy,  "what  are  they  going  to  do  about  it  ?" 

Obey  the  injunction  of  the  Master,  roll  up  their 
sleeves  and  go  to  work  and  aid  the  few  who  are 
already  engaged  in  the  work,  or  will  they  still  con- 
tinue to  give  the  subject  a  wide  berth  and  denounce 
all  those  who  believe  that  Christ  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about  and  doing  about,  and  are  trying  to  do 
as  he  did? 

The  subject  is  one  of  tremendous  import  to  the 
whole  family  of  man  in  both  worlds,  and  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  is  a  question  that  involves  the 
entire  relations  that  exist  between  the  two  worlds  of 
human  life. 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

To  longer  ignore  these  vast  problems  that  so  vitally 
concern  the  whole  life  of  man,  or  to  hold  them  as 
"contraband,"  and  denounce  all  those  who,  moved  by 
philanthropic  motives,  seek  to  investigate  these  ques- 
tions from  both  their  spiritual  and  scientific  sides,  is 
neither  just  nor  wise. 

There  has  never  been  a  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world  in  which  so  large  a  per  cent,  of  human  kind 
are  affected  by  the  insanities  that  originate  in  the 
spiritual  world  of  mankind,  and  the  number  is  rapidly 
on  the  increase,  both  in  Europe  and  America.  While 
the  population  of  Massachusetts  increased  at  one  time 
but  13  per  cent.,  her  insane  people  increased  50  per 
cent. 

The  people  of  the  State  of  California  have  filled  five 
large  public  insane  asylums,  not  to  speak  of  the 
private  ones. 


THE  INFINITE  MAN. 

The  Universe  is  one  man.  But  man  is  an  infinite 
measure.  It  is  that  Infinite  Divine  Being  we  term 
God — the  Supreme  and  perfect  Oversoul.  "In  whom 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being"  and  an  indis- 
soluble and  eternal  part  of  that  Infinite  Man — if  we 
obey  his  living  eternal  laws. 

If  there  be  any  of  the  evangelists  to  whom  the  world 
is  especially  indebted  for  having  given  it  some  glimpses 
into  the  greatest  of  all  the  sciences  as  indicated  by  the 
beloved  Christ  in  his  last  great  discourse  to  his  disci- 
ples, and  elsewhere  in  John's  gospel,  it  is  to  John.  And 
that  greatest  and  most  important  of  all  the  sciences  is 
Metaphysiology,  or  the  Physiology  of  the  divine  Man. 

John  was  the  most  spiritually  minded  of  the  disci- 
ples of  the  Master;  saw  most  deeply  into  the  occult 
truths  of  the  Word — the  spiritual  Man,  as  delineated 

3Q 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

by  Jesus  in  his  discourses  to  the  disciples  and  to  the 
public. 

It  was  this  more  profound  appreciation  oi  the  deep 
things  of  the  spiritual  man  as  set  forth  by  Jesus  that 
created  and  established  the  greater  bond  of  love  and 
sympathy  between  them  than  existed  with  Jesus  and 
all  others  of  his  disciples,  and  which  caused  him  openly 
to  be  called  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved." 

The  other  evangelists — Matthew,  Mark  and  Luke — 
were  little  more  than  historians  of  the  ethical  teachings 
of  Jesus,  though  Matthew,  in  his  report  of  Christ's 
''Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  has  manifested  a  profound 
appreciation  of  that  greatest,  noblest  and  best  of  the 
collections  of  moral  essays,  principles,  truths,  maxims, 
that  were  ever  delivered  to  mankind. 

But  Christ  in  that  last  and  most  touching  of  all  his 
discourses,  when  giving  his  disciples  his  last  and  for- 
mal farewell,  and  in  other  conversations  elsewhere 
with  his  disciples  and  with  the  multitude,  has  laid 
down  a  few  simple,  sublime  outline  truths  that  are 
destined  to  become  the  foundation  of  a  new  science 
and  a  new  philosophy;  and  that  science  and  that 
philosophy,  as  we  have  already  seen,isMetaphysiology, 
or  a  proper  knowledge  of  both  the  interior  and  the 
exterior  forms  and  forces  of  the  spiritual  man.  When 
Jesus  informed  his  disciples  and  the  Jews  that  unless 
they  "ate  his  flesh  and  drank  his  blood  they  had  no 
life  in  them";  when  he  hold  them,  "I  am  the  living 
bread  which  came  down  from  heaven:  if  any  man 
eat  of  this  bread  he  shall  live  forever:  and  the  bread 
that  I  will  give  him  is  my  flesh  which  I  will  give  for 
the  life  of  the  world";  and  when  he  said,  "I  am  the 
vine,  ye  are  the  branches,"  and  many  other  of  the 
sublime  yet  occult  truths  of  the  divine  Word,  he  was 
laying  the  formations  of  a  spiritual  science  of  the 
lineaments  and  characters  of  the  spiritual  man  incon- 
ceivably grand  and  glorious,  and  though  but  very  little 
understood  by  the  spiritual  children  that  surrounded 
him,  and  were  addressed  more  as  absolute  scientific 
and  philosophical  propositions  to  the  more  adult  man  of 
future  ages,  yet  have  been  a  source  of  consolation, 

31  .'    •"       , 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

comfort  and  a  joy  to  the  Christian  of  every  age  from 
that  day  to  this,  and  will  so  continue  till  the  end  of 
time. 

For  man  hath  a  spiritual  eye — the  eye  of  faith. 
Webster  doth  not  define  it,  yet  still  it  is  there.  And 
we  walk  in  its  light — ^by  faith  and  by  sight  also.  It 
It  is  the  "Pure  Reason''  of  the  philosopher  Emanuel 
Kant.  It  is  the  lumen  or  light  by  which,  when  man 
hath  put  aside  this  "muddy  vesture  of  decay,**  will  be 
the  eye  by  which  he  will  see  all  things  clearly  in  the 
brighter  and  more  heavenly  light  of  the  higher  worlds. 
It  is  in  this  higher,  holier  light  that  even  in  this  life 
man  sees,  though  dimly,  as  Paul  has  said,  many  of 
the  deep  things  of  the  spirit  that  greatly  console  him 
for  the  evils  of  the  world. 

This  inability  on  the  part  of  the  great  mass  of 
human  kind  to  understand  the  deep  and  the  mighty 
things  of  the  spirit  in  a  rational  and  scientific  sense 
is  the  chief  reason  why  there  yet  remain  in  the  various 
creeds  of  Christendom  so  many  inert  and  insoluble 
symbolic  truths  that  have  never  yet  been  rationally 
appropriated  and  digested  by  the  great  mass  of  man- 
kind. We  say  inert  and  insoluble,  for  the  simple  and 
very  good  reason  that  if  a  truth,  however  great  it  may 
happen  to  be,  is  insoluble  to  the  intellect  of  man,  it  is 
by  virtue  of  this  fact  of  little  value  to  the  mind  and 
the  heart  of  man  and  is  inert  and  dead — one  of  the 
husks  of  the  Word.  For  example,  the  well-known 
doctrine  of  "Infant  Damnation,"  after  remaining  in 
the  Presbyterian  "Confession  of  Faith"  for  some  cen- 
turies, dead  and  inert  for  lack  of  some  one  to  crack 
the  nut  and  give  its  containments  to  science  and  the 
world  of  mankind,  has  at  last  been  cast  overboard 
by  the  good  Presbyterian  Patres. 

Now,  that  article  of  their  faith  was  perfectly  right. 
All  it  needed  was  for  some  one  to  explain  its  meaning 
so  that  Reason  and  Science  could  comprehend  it.  But, 
like  the  Myth  of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  book  of" 
Genesis,  it  was  highly  symbolical  and  no  one  has  ever 
fully  solved  its  deep  and  mystic  meaning.  But  Adam 
and  Eve:    What  are  they  but  the  Rational  and  the 

32  «i 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

Spiritual  understandings  of  the  human  Intelligence? 
Adam  is  the  Rational  Understanding  {"Die  Ver- 
standt")  of  Emanuel  Kant.  Eve  is  Pwre  Reason  (der 
Reinan  Vernunft).  Of  this  important  faculty,  as  a 
class  woman,  who  is  of  more  spiritual  make  than  man, 
enjoys  the  larger  share. 

The  Rational  Understanding  is  a  masculine  'organ, 
and  man  has  a  greater  endowment  of  this,  as  a  class, 
than  has  woman.  When  it  is  stated  in  Genesis  that 
Eve  partook  first  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil,  and  afterward  gave  to  Adam,  and 
he  also  did  eat  thereof,  it  is  a  simple  statement  in 
the  forms  of  symbolic  language  of  an  act  and  a  fact 
in  the  history  of  the  operations  of  the  human  mind 
that  is  as  old  as  the  world: — ^yea,  as  God  himself.  It 
is  this  feminine  element  in  the  human  intelligence, 
whether  it  be  in  man  or  in  woman  in  greater  degree — 
though  far  oftener  in  woman — that  first  discovers  and 
"eats"  all  new  and  great  truths  and  afterwards  imparts 
them  to  the  Rational  Intelligence^  and  "he  did  eat." 

As  to  the  ''Fall'*  of  man,  what  simpler  and  more 
natural  explanation  of  this  beautiful  myth  can  be  given 
than  to  consider  the  truth  that  man  is  a  two-fold 
entity — he  is  both  an  animal  and  a  spiritual  being. 

As  he  partakes  more  and  more  of  the  spiritual  foods 
— of  the  "tree  of  the  knowledges  of  good  and  of  evil" 
— and  becomes  more  spiritual  in  his  nature,  the 
Adamic,  or  animal,  man  in  him  "falls"  off  from  him 
as  the  tree  sheds  its  bark  and  the  serpent  his  skin: — 
and  as  the  animal  in  him  "falls"  the  spiritual  man 
within  him  rises;  which  is  true  of  man  both  racially 
and  individually,  and  has  been  thus  from  the  dawn 
of  his  existence  upon  the  planet  until  now. 

If  our  worthy  Presbyterian  friends  had  only  made 
an  attempt  to  resolve  this  tenet  of  their  faith — viz., 
"Infant  Damnation" — instead  of  casting  it  overboard 
as  a  something  likely,  soon  or  late,  to  sink  the  ship 
if  not  disposed  of  in  some  way  to  adapt  the  Credo 
to  the  swiftly  advancing  opinions  of  mankind  under 
the  potent  influence  of  progressive  free  thought,  they 
might  have  lighted  upon  a  great  and  mighty  original 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

truth  that  would  have  gone  far  toward  the  solution  of 
many  other  occult  and  vital  principles  in  the  life  of 
man.  For  in  very  deed  and  truth  and  in  all  canbor, 
the  churches,  many  of  them  whose  constituents  have 
lived  too  long  and  too  much  upon  the  mere  husks  of 
the  Word,  are  mightily  in  need  of  a  change  of  diet,' 
for  the  want  of  which  thousands  are  leaving  the 
churches  behind  them,  and  many  of  them  are  seekin,?r 
"strange  folds  and  pastures  new."  But  in  all  sincerity 
this  need  not,  ought  not,  so  to  be.  Man  is  pre- 
eminently a  social  being  and  greatly  needs  companion- 
ship and  sympathy  to  keep  him  out  of  evil  and  evil 
ways.  How  many  a  noble  man  has  been  saved  by 
the  love,  the  help  and  sympathy  of  friends  when  he 
was  falling,  and  how  many  have  been  lost  for  the 
want  of  them?  Yes,  and  many  a  man,  and  woman 
too,  has  been  saved  from  moral  and  spiritual  ship- 
wreck by  still  adhering  to  the  old  ship  long  after  they 
had  ceased  to  have  any  real  interest  and  sympathy 
with  the  views  of  the  ''Lights''  in  command.  It  was 
the  Social  influences  rather  than  the  Spiritual  that 
saved  them. 

For  the  Church,  as  its  name  implies,  is  "God's 
House,"  and  when  it  is  once  properly  adapted  to  the 
progressive  nature  of  man  as  well  as  to  his  sympathies 
and  affections,  it  will  become  and  remain  forever  his 
spiritual  guide,  guard  and  protection  in  the  midst  of 
all  the  moral,  social  and  spiritual  dangers  that  may 
beset  his  pathway  and  allure  him  from  the  paths  of 
rectitude,  honor  and  decency. 

But  the  church  must  advance.  It  must  put  aside 
or  properly  explain  scientifically  the  tough,  hard 
noduses  of  the  Creed,  which  are  and  have  been  for 
ages  now  stumbling  blocks  in  the  ways  of  Christians 
and  non-Christians,  that  have  kept  millions  out  of  the 
fold,  and  have  driven  out  many  of  those  already  there 
when  their  growing  intelligence  would  not  permit 
them  any  longer  to  remain  in  it  and  by  so  doing 
indorse  the  awful  terrors  of  the  Creed.  The  character 
of  our  Heavenly  Father  as  Jesus  defined  him  to  be 
and  the  one  formulated  in  the  Credo  are  not  alike,  but 
in  utter  contrast  with  each  other. 

34 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

No  human  intelligence,  or  intelligence  of  any  sort, 
human  or  divine,  can  reconcile  them,  until  the  sym- 
bolic sense  of  the  Creed  is  put  aside  and  we  apply  the 
Scientific  Sense,  in  giving  it  the  only  true  explanation 
it  can  have.  The  contrast  thus  displayed  in  the  delinea- 
tion of  the  Divine  Character  as  they  appear  in  the 
plain  teachin'gs  of  Jesus,  and  as  they  are  taught  in 
the  Creed,  is  indeed  terrible !  We  quote  Christ's  words 
concerning  it:  ''Or  what  man  is  there  of  you  who, 
if  his  son  ask  bread,  will  give  him  a  stone;  or  if  he 
ask  fish  will  give  him  a  serpent?  //  ye,  then,  being 
eznl,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children^, 
how  much  more  shall  your  Father  who  is  in  Heaven 
give  good  things  to  them  that  ask  Him?" 

We  present  to  the  reader  both  the  old  and  the  new 
amended  article  concerning  Reprobation  as  it  appears 
in  the  Presbyterian  Confession  of  Faith,  as  we  find 
them  in  a  late  copy  of  the  Outlook: 

"For  then  shall  the  righteous  go  into  everlasting 
life  and  receive  that  fulness  of  joy  and  refreshing 
which  shall  come  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  But 
the  wicked  who  know  not  God  and  who  obey  not  the 
gospel  of  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  shall  be  cast  into 
eternal  torments  and  be  punished  with  everlasting 
destruction  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  from 
the  glory  of  his  power."  The  new  and  amended  state- 
ment of  the  article  is  in  these  words: 

"The  wicked  shall  receive  the  eternal  award  of  their 
sins,  and  the  Lord  will  manifest  the  glory  of  his 
mercy  in  the  salvation  of  his  people  and  their  entrance 
upon  the  full  enjoyment  of  eternal  life." 

"It  is  not  rash  to  say,"  says  this  author,  "that  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  is  thus  practically  elim- 
inated from  the  Presbyterian  Creed.  Yet  one  may 
hold  that  doctrine  and  remain  Presbyterian." 

"The  whole  statement  will  soon  come  to  have  a 
meaning  to  the  church  that  would  now  be  disputed 
by  the  strict  constructionists.  Its  adoption  is  a  revo- 
lutionary event  in  the  doctrinal  history  of  American 
Presbyterianism  and  a  great  triumph  of  Theological 
liberality."    True,  it  is  a  "revolutionary  event"  in  the 

35 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

history  of  the  church,  and  very  revokitionary  at  that. 
The  Presbyterian  fathers,  in  their  efforts  to  escape 
from  their  creedal  difficulties,  appear  to  have  for- 
gotten the  injunction  of  the  Master  in  Matt,  ix.,  16-17: 
"No  man  putteth  a  piece  of  new  cloth  into  an  old 
garment;  for  that  which  is  put  in  to  fill  it  up  taketh 
from  the  garment,  and  the  rest  is  made  worse.  Neither 
do  men  put  new  wine  into  old  bottles,  else  the  bottles 
break,  and  the  wine  runneth  out,  and  the  bottles 
perish.  But  they  put  new  wine  into  new  bottles,  and 
both  are  preserved." 

This  revolutionary  step  on  the  part  of  the  church 
fathers  appears  to  have  been  little  worse  than  a  make- 
shift  to  get  rid  of  the  growing  clamor  in  the  churches 
in  favor  of  getting  rid  of  an  article  of  the  creed  that 
was  fastened  upon  it  during  the  dark  ages  of  church 
authority  and  power,  and  was  so  manifest  an  insult  to 
reason  and  to  the  one  Supreme  Being  himself  that  it 
threatened  the  dissolution  of  the  churches  themselves. 

There  is  something  truly  appalling  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  Supreme  Being  as  one  who  sits  in  un- 
approached  and  unapproachable  majesty,  power  and 
wisdom  at  the  Summit  of  Creation,  and  bringing 
worlds  full  of  beings  into  existence  at  the  breath  of 
his  power — beings,  too,  endowed  with  the  most  ex- 
quisite sense  of  pain  and  of  pleasure — and  consigning 
them  to  eternal  torment,  and  for  no  other  assigned  or 
assignable  reason  than  his  ability  to  do  it.  We  search 
history  and  world  in  vain  to  find  a  parallel  for  such 
a  Being.  The  only  one  that  we  can  put  into  a  com- 
parison with  this  picture  of  the  character  of  the 
Supreme  Being  is  the  ancient  Myth  of  Saturn,  which, 
when  interpreted  literally,  as  it  was  in  former  times, 
became  a  subject  of  much  aversion  and  ridicule;  but 
as  now  understood  in  the  light  of  modern  science, 
takes  its  place  as  a  beautiful  picture,  given  in  symbolic 
language,  of  the  way  in  which  Old  Father  Time  dis- 
poses of  his  children — the  minutes,  the  hours,  the 
days,  months,  years  and  ages,  as  they  pass,  and  bury 
themselves  in  the  vast  abysm  of  time. 

But  this  Myth  of  the  ^'Reprobation"  of  his  own  dear, 

36 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS, 

blind,  ignorant  children,  and  casting  them  into  end- 
less torment;  and  the  even  more  irrational  teaching  of 
the  doctrine  of  "Infant  Damnation" — whence  came 
they  but  from  the  too  literal  interpretation  of  the  text 
of  the  Divine  Word  itself  by  the  spiritually  ignorant 
child-man  of  the  primitive  ages  of  the  early  church? 
Had  our  good  Presbyterian  Patres  had  the  courage 
and  the  light  to  come  forward  and  give  to  the  modern 
world  a  scientific  unraveling  and  exposition  of  these 
two  very  important  Arcana  of  the  Word,  they  would 
have  conferred  a  great  and  lasting  benefit  upon  all 
human  kind.  But  they  failed  to  accept  the  proffered 
occasion,  and  their  final  solution  has  been  handed 
down  to  the  next  generation,  which  will  be  farther  ad- 
vanced and  more  heedful  of  the  mandates  of  Reason 
and  of  the  just  opinions  of  mankind.  And  it  will  then 
be  made  plain,  and  in  a  philosophic  and  scientific  way. 
We  have  very  high  authority  in  the  teachings  of  the 
Master  for  this  view  of  the  origin  of  these  Myths : 

"And  his  disciples  came  and  said  unto  him:  Why 
speakest  thou  unto   them  in  parables    (symbols)  ? 

"He  answered  and  said  unto  them:  Because  it  is 
given  unto  you  to  know  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven :  But  unto  them  it  is  not  given.  Therefore 
speak  I  unto  them  in  parables:  because  they  seeing, 
see  not  (spiritually)  and  hearing,  hear  not  (spirit- 
ually), neither  do  they  understand  (spiritually). 

"But  blessed  are  your  eyes,  for  they  see,  and  your 
ears,  for  they  hear.''  But  this  inability  of  the  disciples 
of  Jesus  to  comprehend  spiritual  things  was  not 
wholly  true  of  them — at  least,  not  to  all  of  them,  and 
of  some  of  the  more  obvious  Arcana  of  the  Word. 

At  a  later  occasion,  when  he  presented  to  the  Jewish 
multitude  and  to  his  disciples  also  those  beautiful, 
symbolic  pictures  concerning  the  eating  of  his  flesh  and 
drinking  of  his  blood,  many  of  his  disciples  said :  "This 
is  a  hard  saying;  who  can  hear  it?  *  *  *  So  that  from 
that  time  many  of  his  disciples  went  back  and  walked 
no  more  with  him."  The  truth  is  there  are  Arcana 
and  arcana,  and  some  are  easily  soluble,  while  others 

37 


^AN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

are  more  difficult  of  solution,  and  are  obliged  to  wait 
for  their  solution  in  an  age  that  is  more  advanced  in 
spiritual  things,  and  aided  also  by  the  lights  of  a 
true  science,  but  not  a  />j^wrf(?-science,  of  which  man- 
kind has  been  afflicted  too  much  already. 

But  what  is  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this 
very  remarkable  and  terrible  Myth  of  'Infant  Dam- 
nation"— the  eternal  damnation  of  little,  infant  chil- 
dren, those  whom  Christ,  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
set  them  before  his  disciples  as  the  very  highest  models, 
as  citizens  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven?  "And  they 
brought  unto  him  also  infants  that  he  would  teach 
them.  But  when  his  disciples  saw  it  they  rebuked 
them.  But  Jesus  called  them  unto  him  and  said: 
"Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid 
them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Verily 
I  say  unto  you,  Whosoever  shall  not  receive  the  King- 
dom of  God  as  a  little  child,  shall  in  no  zvise  enter 
therein."  And  again:  "At  the  same  time  came  the 
disciples  unto  Jesus,  saying.  Who  is  the  greatest  in 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven? 

"And  Jesus  called  a  little  child  unto  him,  and  set 
him  in  the  midst  of  them  and  said:  Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  except  ye  be  converted  and  become  as  little  chil- 
dren ye  shall  not  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

"Whosoever  therefore  shall  humble  himself  as  this 
little  child,  the  same  is  greatest  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  and  whoso  shall  receive  one  such  little  child 
in  my  name  receiveth  me."  It  is  such  dear  beings 
as  these,  so  precious  to  the  heart  of  the  beloved 
teacher,  that  theology  would  consign  to  eternal  dam- 
nation !  Could  spiritual  antithesis,  untruth  and  un- 
reason further  go? 

Yes,  it  is  very  true,  as  science  hath  declared:  "The 
Universe  is  governed  by  Law."  But  Law  is  but  an 
expression  of  the  Modus  Vivendi  of  the  Infinite 
Divine  Being  whom  we  call  God. 

The  Universe  is  a  manifold  and  many-sided  Being, 
and  all  who  desire  to  formulate  some  picture  of  Him 
to  aid  the  mind  in  the  contemplation  of  His  character 

*  38 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

use  manifold  terms  of  definition,  as  the  artist  who 
attempts  to  define  a  vast  mountain  takes  his  object 
from  many  viewpoints. 


THE  EVERLASTING  GOSPEL. 

"And  I  saw  another  Angel  fly  in  the  midst  of 
Heaven  having  the  everlasting  gospel  to  preach  unto 
them  that  dwell  on  the  earth  and  to  every  nation  and 
kindred  and  tongue  and  people,  saying  with  a  loud 
voice :  Fear  God  and  give  glory  to  Him :  for  the  hour 
of  His  judgment  is  come:  and  worship  Him  that 
made  Heaven  and  earth  and  the  sea,  and  the  fountains 
of  waters." 

But  this  "Everlasting  Gospel'*  is  not  the  gospel 
of  Ancient  Theology,  which  is  based  upon  the  partial 
and  symbolical  sense  of  the  Word,  but  is  founded 
upon  its  scientific  and  spiritual  sense. 

Theology  is  but  the  preliminary  and  preparatory 
Gospel,  the  literal  or  A,  B,  C  Department  of  human 
life  and  thought,  that,  like  the  preparatory  depart- 
ment of  the  school  and  the  college,  are  designed  to  get 
the  pupils  more  fully  equipped  and  prepared  to  enter 
the  higher  classes  and  departments  of  science  and 
philosophy. 

The  Divine  Word,  as  it  was  delivered  to  mankind 
by  the  great  teacher,  and  practically  embodied  all  that 
was  essential  in  the  teachings  of  all  the  great  Reform- 
ers of  mankind  who  had  preceded  him,  was  given  to 
man  in  what  may  be  termed  an  involved  and  dual 
form,  viz.,  the  literal  or  symbolical  sense  of  the  Word, 
and  the  spiritual  or  the  full  scientific  sense. 

In  this  dual  arrangement  of  the  involved  forms  of 
the  Word  the  literal  and  Symbolical  sense  are  neces- 
sarily obliged  to  occult  and  in  greatest  degree  to  con- 
ceal the  interior  and  spiritual  forms  of  the  Word, 

39 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

which  lie  within  and  behind  the  literal  forms  thereof, 
and  constitute  a  dense,  dark  veil — the  flesh — through 
which  but  few  of  the  bright  rays  of  the  spiritual 
sense  of  the  Word  penetrate  or  pass.  So  that  the 
person  who  is  living  in  earthly  life  forms  is  in  this 
way  shut  up  within  his  own  material  body  as  in  a 
sort  of  poison,  through  which  he  gets  only  partial 
gleams  of  the  full  spiritual  light  that  come  to  him 
through  the  dense  shell  that  invests  him  on  every  side. 

'Tor  now  we  see  as  through  a  dark  glass.  But 
then" — after  the  demise  of  the  material  body — "face 
to  face." 

This  is  peculiarly  true  of  the  lower  forms  of  the 
racial  infant,  spiritual  man,  whose  spiritual  body  is 
made  up  almost  wholly  of  animal  knowledges  and 
life  forms,  so  that,  like  his  original  prototype  that  is 
spoken  of  in  Genesis,  he  is  destitute  of  the  moral  sense 
of  right  and  wrongs  and  remains  in  that  spiritual 
estate  until  he  has  eaten  of  the  fruit  of  the  "tree  of 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,"  which  he,  as  an  animal 
many  is  forbidden  to  eat,  and  for  the  obvious  reason 
that  these  higher  knowledges  of  good  and  ill,  if  used 
freely  by  the  animal  man,  soon  dissolves,  breaks  up 
and  destroys  his  life  principles,  and  he  is  soon  en  route 
to  death.  It  is  for  this  reason,  also,  that  many  men  and 
women  of  a  high  order  of  intelligence,  and  who  are 
rapidly  growing  in  a  knowledge  of  spiritual  things,  are 
much  troubled  with  disorders  of  the  animal  functions 
of  the  body.  It  is  one  of  the  natural  consequences 
of  that  slow,  gradual  decomposition  of  the  animal 
man  that  necessarily  attends  the  spiritual  transforma- 
tion that  takes  place  in  the  spiritual  man  (or  body) 
whereby  he  is  enabled,  soon  or  late,  to  slough  off  the 
old  Adamic  man  with  all  his  gross  foods,  deeds,  appe- 
tites and  desires  and  to  "put  on — clothe  himself  with — 
the  new  man,  which  has  been  renewed  in  spiritual 
knowledges  after  the  image  (and  likeness)  of  Him 
that  created  him." 

That  this  was  the  form  of  death  that  the  Adamic 
man  was  warned  against  by  his  Creator,  and  not  the 
loss  of  his  material  body  by  what  we  ordinarily  term 

49 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

death,  will  become  apparent  if  we  take  the  statements 
of  the  Bible  as  our  authority.  For  according  to  that 
account  Adam  (which  means  an  earth  man)  did  not 
die  as  to  his  material  body,  but  lived  in  it  for  many 
hundreds  of  years  afterward,  "and  beget  sons  and 
daughters." 

For  the  Adamic  or  primeval  men  of  the  planet  were 
not  men  of  a  very  high  order,  but  the  very  reverse. 
They  were  the  very  earliest  and  rudest  forms  of 
human  life,  and  but  two  or  three  removes  from  the 
animal  world  out  of  which  they  had  come  up  by  recent 
incarnations. 

They  were  little  more  than  mere  animals  by  nature, 
differing  from  them  chiefly  in  their  more  erect  and 
manlike  forms,  but  with  the  moral  and  mental  status 
of  animals,  though  with  the  outward  ''image  and  like- 
ness" of  the  Gods — that  is,  of  men. 

The  Spirit  of  Intelligences,  however,  reckon  the 
Gorilla  and  the  Anthropoid  Apes  as  the  lowest  forms 
of  primitive  man,  and  the  ''missing  link"  in  the  chain 
of  being  from  animal  to  man. 

That  we  have  given  the  true  sense  of  the  term 
"Everlasting  Gospel,"  given  in  the  words  of  the 
text,  Rev.  xiv.,  6,  will  become  manifest  if  we  reflect 
carefully  upon  its  true  spiritual  rendering  of  the 
whole  passage.  For  the  Angel  does  not  command  men 
to  worship  the  God  of  theology,  but  the  God  that  is 
revealed  in  and  by  his  works.  "Fear  God  and  give 
glory  to  him:  for  the  hour  of  his  judgment  is  come: 
and  worship  him  that  made  Heaven  and  earth  and 
the  sea  and  the  fountains  of  waters,'*  viz.,  the  God  of 
Science,  of  Astronomy,  of  Geology,  of  Philosophy  and 
of  Reason. 

If  there  be  anything  among  all  the  knowledges  of 
man  that  inspires  in  him  the  passions  of  unutterable 
love,  adoration,  worship,  it  is  a  contemplation  of  the 
Creator  as  exemplified  and  revealed  in  his  works. 
"An  undevout  astronomer  is  mad/'  says  the  poet 
Young.  And  it  is  this  God  that  men  everywhere  are 
commanded  to  worship. 

Yes,  the  Angel,  in  preaching  the  new  and  "ever- 

41 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMGS. 

lasting  Gospel"  to  all  that  dwell  on  the  earth,  and  to 
e^'ery  kindred  and  nation  and  tongue  and  people," 
virtually  enjoins  upon  all  mankind  that  they  no  longer 
worship  the  God  of  Theology — the  God  that  was  taken 
from  the  Word  when  used  in  its  narrow y  symbolical 
sense — useful  and  even  indispensable  to  the  worship 
and  to  the  welfare  of  man  in  the  early  periods  of  his 
existence,  when  he  had  the  spiritual  understanding 
of  an  infant,  but  now  no  longer  useful,  because  he 
has  outgrown  them;  so  that  now,  in  dwelling  in  these 
very  narrow  forms  and  uses  of  the  Word,  they  terribly 
cramp  his  whole  spiritual  man  and  greatly  retard  his 
spiritual  growth  in  all  things. 

Yes,  this  is  what  the  new  ''Everlasting  Gospel"  doth 
not  accomplish  for  mankind.  It  places  no  fetters  on 
the  human  mind — the  worship  of  this  "God  that  made 
Heaven  and  earth  and  the  sea,  and  the  fountains  of 
waters."  It  only  uplifts  the  soul  into  a  transport  of 
love,  worship  and  communion  with  an  adorable  Cre- 
ator and  Father,  and  enables  him  to  realize  that  he 
is  indeed  a  veritable  child  of  his — a  son  of  the  Infinite 
God  himself.  "Oh,  God,"  said  the  great  astronomer, 
Kepler,  as  he  was  demonstrating  the  laws  governing 
the  planets  in  their  everlasting  flight  about  their  great 
centre,  the  sun — "Oh,  God,  I  am  thinking  thy  thoughts 
after  Thee!"  And  this  is  indeed  the  "hour,"  the 
fact  and  truth  of  his  "judgment."  Who  that  hath 
reflected  much  upon  the  vast  inequalities  and  dis- 
crepancies that  everywhere  exist  in  human  life  hath 
not  often  had  the  sensibilities,  yea,  the  very  soul  of 
him,  bowed  down  with  sorrow  and  anguish,  and  even 
filled  with  rebellion  at  what  to  him  appears  to  Df 
the  injustice  and  unfairness  of  the  Creator  in  his  allot- 
ments of  human  destinies? 

But  if  we  will  only  be  patient,  and  call  to  our  aid 
the  lights  of  true  science  to  guide  us  in  our  investi- 
gations, we  shall  shortly  discover  that  these  vast  dis- 
crepancies and  differences  that  we  see  around  us  on 
every  side  are  not  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  in- 
equalities in  any  just  and  proper  sense  of  that  term, 

42 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

but  are  disciplinary  in  their  character  and  belong  to 
the  lower  incarnations  of  the  human  plane. 

There  are  so  vast  a  proportion  of  mankind  who 
are  living  in  the  lower  and  first  incarnations,  and  who 
are  incapable  of  looking  into  the  great  mirror  of 
Life  and  seeing  themselves  as  others  see  them.  But 
time  and  repeated  re-embodiments  will,  in  God's  good 
time,  bear  them  up  on  to  the  higher  and  more  benefi- 
cent planes  of  being.  This  little  world  of  ours,  when 
its  people  have  once  fully  entered  upon  the  new  civ- 
ilization in  its  higher  and  more  perfect  forms,  will 
become  an  important  sanitarium  for  the  reincarnation 
and  renewal  of  the  bodies — both  material  and  spirit- 
ual— of  those  who  had  lost  them  by  a  premature  in- 
carnation. How  many  a  poor,  spiritually  sick  human 
soul  has  been  hunted  to  his  grave,  dying  upon  the 
scaffold  or  in  the  midst  of  the  curses  and  tortures 
inflicted  by  the  maddened  and  howling  mob,  who 
during  his  whole  lifetime  had  striven  vastly  harder  to 
stem  the  torrent  of  his  appetites  and  passions  than 
other  thousands  who  have  died  in  the  "odor  of 
sanctity,"  and  with  their  ears  ringing  with  the  ap- 
plause of  millions?  The  vast  differences  and  inequali- 
ties of  every  kind  that  exist  among  mankind  is  due 
to  their  lack  of  advancement.  They  have  not  been  run 
through  the  ''Mills  of  the  Gods"  as  often  as  others. 

When  they  have  built  themselves  up  by  as  manifold 
reincarnations  as  a  Christ,  a  Buddha  or  a  Lincoln,  they 
will  become  endowed  with  an  equal,  if  not  an  even 
possibly  greater,  power  and  ability. 

Much  depends  upon  the  person,  the  work  for  which 
he  is  being  prepared  and  the  aid  he  gets  from  the 
powers  above  him. 

And  yet  all  of  them  were  equally  the  handiwork  of 
the  same  Infinite,  Almighty  Creator,  Lord  of  the 
Heavens  and  the  earth,  and  bear  his  own  sign  manual 
engraven  upon  every  line  and  atom  of  their  being! 

Shall  we  say  with  certain  ones  of  the  older  times, 
"The  way  of  the  Lord  is  not  equal"?  No!  By  no 
means  whatsoever* 

43 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

Christ,  who  better  understood  the  secret  laws  that 
operate  on  mankind,  bid  his  followers  pierce  their 
enemies  through  the  heart  in  the  spiritual  sense  of  that 
word,  as  being  not  only  the  surest  but  the  morally 
safest  and  the  best  for  all  parties  concerned.  *' Father, 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do/' 

And  in  what  way  can  we  do  a  weak,  ignorant  and 
sick  brother  a  greater  service  than  to  open  his  spiritual 
eyes  in  this  instructive  and  saving  way?  Jesus  him- 
self put  these  grand  and  noble  principles  into  prac- 
tice under  circumstances  the  most  appalling,  perhaps, 
that  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  man. 

But  the  greatest,  the  sublimest  of  the  moral  forces 
that  are  concerned  in  all  such  cases  comes  to  the  man 
who  forgives.  The  Angel  calls  the  attention  of  the 
world  to  this  message,  which  we  have  just  quoted, 
and  which  he  has  been  authorized  to  preach  to  man- 
kind. It  is  the  announcement  of  the  ending  up  of  the 
old  Dispensation  with  all  its  ancient  and  imperfect 
forms,  ceremonies,  modes  and  phases  of  thought  and 
action,  and  the  formal  introduction  of  the  new 
Millenial  Era  and  Dispensation,  now  near  at  hand,  if 
there  be  any  truth  in  the  present  strange  and  mar- 
velous "Signs  of  the  Times." 

But  man  is  a  Creature  and  not  a  Creator,  nor 
self  made.  He  came  up  through  and  out  of  the 
animal  world,  which  in  its  infinity  of  life  forms  had 
gestated  man  in  his  more  primeval  estates  and  con- 
ditions and  were  the  stepping  stones  by  which,  under 
the  directive  energies  of  the  Divine  Mind,  had  enabled 
man  to  ascend  through,  from  and  out  of  the  various 
orders,  classes  and  species  of  the  lower  worlds  of  life 
on  to  the  higher  planes  and  spheres  of  his  manifold 
and  marvelous  being. 

Oh,  if  man  only  knew  the  real  causes  of  these  so 
wonderful,  so  strange,  and  yet  so  absolutely  indis- 
pensable differences  in  the  lives  and  the  fortunes  of 
their  fellow  men!  Not  ''Total  Depravity"  or  any 
other  variety  or  species  of  Badness.  But  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  Creator  of  men,  of  worlds  and 
their  civilizations,  like  all  other  persons,  requires  Time 

44 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

as  one  of  the  indispensable  factors  of  Creative  energy 
in  the  creation  of  man  and  his  worlds,  and  plenty  of 
it,  too — first  as  an  animal  of  a  low  type  and  order, 
second  as  one  of  a  higher  rank  or  physical  man,  and 
third  as  a  spiritual  being,  or  man  in  all  his  infinity  of 
modes,  forms,  conditions  and  estates  of  existence. 

But  these  spiritual  forms  and  degrees  of  his  being 
can  only  be  attained  by  long  ages  of  earnest  life  and 
work;  manifold  Reincarnations  in  terrestrial  estates 
under  disciplinary  conditions,  followed  by  long  ages 
spent  in  spiritual  soul  life,  devoted  to  the  culture 
and  growth  of  the  spiritual  side  of  him  until  he  shall 
have  attained  the  Godhood  in  the  higher  and  highest 
forms  of  the  Divine  life  of  man  and  of  God — after 
he  has  sloughed  the  last  vestige  of  the  animal  and  has 
ascended  on  to  the  higher  planes  of  immortality  and 
everlasting  life!  But  while  he  remains  upon  the 
lower  animal  planes  of  being,  there  is  one  side  of  his 
nature  that  will  always  respond  more  or  less  to  all 
appeals  to  the  animal  nature  within  him.  It  is  the 
humaw^  side  of  him. 

It  is  for  those  manifold  and  manifest  reasons  that 
Jesus  enjoined  upon  his  followers  in  that  greatest  of 
all  his  discourses  on  human  ethics:  "Ye  have  heard 
that  it  hath  been  said,  'Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor 
and  hate  thine  enemy/  But  I  say  unto  you:  Love 
your  enemies:  bless  them  that  curse  you:  do  good  to 
them  that  hate  you  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully 
use  you  and  persecute  you !" 

Thus  it  is  to  ''bruise'*  the  head  of  the  serpent  of 
man's  selfishness,  and  then  in  turn  to  assist  our  offend- 
ing brother — if  he  will  permit  us  to  help  crush  it  also 
in  himself;  for  by  thus  giving  the  Adamic  or  animal 
man  a  free  hand,  we  disarm  him  and  make  a  strong 
appeal  to  his  nobler  nature  to  come  forth  and  assert 
itself. 

This  was  what  Christ  did  when  he  voluntarily 
sought  the  Jewish  authorities  and  gave  himself  up  to 

*The   word   human   is   from   homo,    and    this    in    turn 
comes   from  humus— soW,  earth. 

45 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

be  put  upon  the  Cross,  where  the  worlds  could  behold 
him  hanging  upon  the  Cross  in  illustration  of  that 
divine,  world-compelling  principle  that  years  before  he 
had  announced  in  his  sublime  *' Sermon  on  the  Mount," 
and  afterwards  converted  it  into  a  grand  object  lesson 
to  instruct,  uplift  and  overcome  the  passions,  hatreds 
and  angers  of  the  worlds  and  the  ages  of  mankind. 
And  that  is  what  he  is  accomplishing  now  at  this  very 
time.  His  great  and  glorious  example  and  words, 
holding  thus  the  mirror  up  to  divine  nature,  fur- 
nishes a  center  of  crystallization  for  the  Amorphic  and 
disorderly  masses  of  mankind,  that  as  a  point  of  attrac- 
tion grows  more  potent  and  commanding  as  the  years 
and  the  ages  roll  onward. 

Could  the  Great  Teacher  have  taken  singly  the  mob 
that  put  him  on  the  Cross,  they  could  never,  any  one 
of  them,  have  touched  a  hair  of  his  head.  It  was  the 
hydra  of  the  mob  that  crucified  Him,  whose  mutual 
hatreds  and  passions  were  whetting  each  other,  and 
gave  no  opportunity  for  poor,  weak,  human  nature  to 
assert  itself.    But  it  killed  poor  Judas  at  the  first  shot. 

We  could  gave  many  examples  of  the  operation  of 
this  divine,  holy  principle  in  human  life,  but  will  con- 
tent ourself  with  a  single  one.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
was  at  one  time  challenged  to  fight  a  duel  by  a  rash, 
hot-headed  young  man,  who  had  taken  some  high 
offence  at  him.  Raleigh  refused  to  fight  him,  where- 
upon the  young  man  spat  in  his  face ! 

Taking  out  his  handkerchief  he  calmly  and  delib- 
erately wiped  it  off.  "Young  man,"  said  he,  *'if  I  could 
as  easily  wipe  your  blood  from  my  conscience  as  I 
can  remove  this  indignity  from  my  face,  I  would  this 
instant  take  your  life!" 

But  such  an  exhibition  of  heroic  forbearance  and 
self-restraint  was  more  than  the  arrogance  of  the 
young  man  could  bear  up  under,  and  he  immediately 
fell  upon  his  knees  and  begged  the  forgiveness  of  the 
old  hero.  It  is  this  moral  grandeur  of  soul,  this  sub- 
limity of  compassion,  sympathy  and  affection,  that  is 
the  glory  of  the  human  character.  ''In  hoc  signoJ* 
Yes,  it  is  truly  in  this  that  we  must  conquer. 

46 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

And  if  I  am  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  I  will  draw 
all  men  unto  me."  It  is  the  spiritual  leaven  that, 
descending  from  the  sublime  heights  of  Divine  Love, 
tenderness  and  compassion,  that  in  God's  all  good 
time  will  become  the  whole  race  of  mankind. 

^'Master,  who  did  sin  this  man  or  his  parents  that 
he  was  thus  born  blind?"  "Neither  hath  this  man 
sinned  nor  his  parents:  But  that  the  works  of  God 
should  be  made  manifest  in  him."  What!  is  God 
the  author  of  evil?  Yea,  verily  it  is  just  as  the  be- 
loved Jesus  taught  his  disciples  in  regard  to  this  un- 
fortunate blind  man.  "I  form  the  light  and  create 
darkness.  I  make  peace  and  create  evil.  I,  the  Lord, 
do  all  these  things." 

Yes,  and  not  until  we  have  mastered  the  infinite, 
problem  of  how  the  eternal  God  is,  as  stated  by  Jesus 
and  Isaiah,  the  author  of  all  things,  can  we  begin 
to  comprehend  the  vastness  of  His  plans  for  the  Cre- 
ation and  Salvation  of  mankind. 

If  now  we  have  the  candor  and  the  freedom  of  soul 
to  admit  the  mighty  truth  of  the  statement  thus  laid 
down  and  established  by  the  great  Teacher,  we  may 
begin  to  see  that  crime  itself  is  less  a  fault  than  a  mis- 
fortune.  Indeed,  the  greater  the  crime  the  greater  the 
misfortune. 

Did  not  the  wise  Socrates  say:  "Vice  is  ignorance" 
(concrete)  and  "Virtue  is  knowledge" — yea,  organic 
knowledge  ?  We  must  lift  up  the  sinner,  first  into  the 
light  of  our  intelligence  and  afterward  into  the  light 
of  our  love,  sympathy  and  compassion.  And  if  it  be  a 
real  misfortune  to  be  born  blind  physically,  how  much 
greater  a  misfortune  must  it  be  to  be  born  morally 
and  spiritually  blind! 

We  necessarily  regard  such  a  being  as  a  Durant  or 
a  Holmes  as  a  moral  monster,  and  so  he  is.  But  the 
causes  that  created  them  were  put  into  them  before 
fhey  were  born.  They  themselves  were  greater  zfictims 
than  were  their  victims.  Their  crimes  were  but  an 
expression  in  time  and  world  of  forces  most  of  which 
were  put  into  them  before  they  were  born.    The  latter 

47 


/ 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 


were  innocent  people,  who,  upon  entrance  into  spirit 
life,  went  and  joined  their  friends  in  that  life,  and 
there  was  the  end  to  their  misfortunes.  The  former, 
on  entering  into  the  other  life,  went  into  a  state  of 
terrible  darkness,  sorrow  and  remorse  from  which 
it  may  require  ages  to  fully  recover. 

The  treatment  by  society  of  these  waifs  of  the  two 
worlds  is  in  general  of  the  very  worst.  Instead  of  being 
calculated  to  "plant  eyes"  in  the  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  of  man,  it  does  the  other  thing.  It  maddens 
and  blinds  them  to  the  light,  beauty,  grandeur  and 
glories  of  the  moral  and  the  spiritual  universes  of 
the  living  God  and  Father  of  all  mankind.  Society 
lights  upon  a  man  with  very  weak  and  imperfect  sight. 
It  shuts  him  up  in  one  of  those  abodes  of  moral  and 
spiritual  darkness  called  prisons^  where  they  contrive 
to  put  out  what  little  sight  was  in  him. 

We  must  preach  and  practice,  too,  this  higher, 
newer,  nobler  "Everlasting  Gospel"  that  the  Angel 
which  John  saw  "flying  in  the  midst  of  Heaven"  was 
commissioned  to  preach  unto  all  that  dwell  on  the 
earth,  and  to  every  nation  and  kindred  and  tongue  and 
people." 

This  expression,  "Flying  in  the  midst  of  the 
Heavens,"  does  not  refer  to  spatial  conditions,  but  to 
the  religious  and  philosophical  conditions  and  estates. 
Christianity,  when  it  has  once  passed  beyond  its  pres- 
ent symbolical  conditions  and  has  been  expanded  into 
its  philosophical  and  scientific  phases,  will  become  a 
universal  religion  and  philosophy  in  one,  and  the  war- 
fare that  has  existed  through  the  ages  between  science 
and  religion  will  forever  end.  And  the  New  Christ- 
ianity will  become  the  Central  Religion  of  Humanity, 
and  identical  with  civilization  itself. 

Yes,  how  sublimely  grand  and  glorious  will  be  that 
religion  when  it  hath  cast  off  the  child  clothing  im- 
posed upon  it  by  the  infant  spiritual  understanding  of 
the  early  ages,  has  put  on  the  dress  of  manhood,  and 
no  longer  worships  the  spectres  of  a  dead  and  dyi:ig 
theology,  and  "worships  Him  that  made  the  Heavens 
and  the  earth  and  the  sea  and  the  fountains  of  waters." 

48 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

It  is  the  "New  (spiritual)  Heavens  and  the  New 
Earth"  that  John  saw  in  his  vision,  "wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness." 


IN  THE  BEGINNING. 

"In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth." 

If  we  are  to  assume  that  this  statement  in  Genesis 
is  a  veritable  inspiration  from  the  sages  of  spirit  life — 
and  we  see  no  good  reason  to  doubt  it,  despite  all  the 
animadversions  of  infant  and  very  fallible  human 
science — we  are  by  no  means  obliged  to  take  this  word 
"beginning"  in  any  absolute  sense;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  a  very  limited  and  finite  one.  Worlds,  like 
men  and  all  other  created  beings,  have  a  "beginning" — 
are  born  into  existence,  run  through  all  the  various 
stages  of  their  various  life  forms,  grow  old  and  die. 
But  the  infinite  and  the  absolute  eternal  have  not 
either  beginning  or  ending,  save  in  the  forms  of  life 
through  which  all  its  children,  born  of  time,  are 
obliged  to  pass. 

We  must  ever  bear  in  mind,  too,  that  all  inspired 
communications  from  the  high  spheres  from  which 
all  true  .inspiration  comes  is  very  highly  symbolical, 
and  it  is  very  necessary  for  him  who  would  rightly 
interpret  symbols  to  get  back  behind  and  to  find  the 
real  and  the  true  and  the  full  meaning  of  the  symbols 
God  purposes  to  more  fully  reveal  to  mankind. 

For  what,  let  us  here  ask  the  question,  is  a  symbol? 

It  is  one  of  the  sides  (only)  of  a  many-sided  truth — 
too  many  sided  for  the  infant  spiritual  man  to  compre- 
hend in  its  entireness,  and  so  the  sages  of  the  higher 
worlds  place  it  before  him  in  "installments"  of  the 
Divine  Word,  that  he  can  better  comprehend,  and 

4r 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

keep  him  drilling  away  at  so  much  of  the  whole  mean- 
ing as  he  can  fully  grasp,  and  keeps  him  at  it  until 
he  hungers  for  something  more  and  better.  The  two 
knights  in  the  fable  who  passed  by  the  shield  set  in 
the  middle  of  the  road,  but  went  by  it  on  opposite 
sides  of  it,  and  came  near  splitting  each  other's  skulls 
over  the  question,  what  sort  of  a  shield  it  was,  whether 
a  golden  or  a  silver  one,  supply  us  with  a  very  good 
illustration  of  the  way  men  of  half  truths  are  often 
obliged  to  wrangle  over  complex  and  many-sided  prin- 
ciples— *'and  worry  and  devour  each  other"  over  their 
true  meaning,  where  each  of  the  parties  involved  are 
looking  at  them  from  different  standpoints  all  the 
while.  ''Most  men  are  but  halves  and  quarters  of  men, 
and,  misunderstanding,  accuse  each  other,"  said  a  wise 
Frenchman. 

The  picture  of  a  human  being  is  but  an  example  of 
one  of  these  symbols  of  poly-sided  truths,  one  of  which 
is  given  in  the  picture,  while  the  others  are  invisible 
from  the  present  viewpoint  of  the  beholders.  All 
other  sides  of  the  question,  What  is  man,  whether 
exterior  or  interior  sides  of  it,  are  invisible  to  the 
eye  from  the  present  position,  and  will  forever  remain 
so  until  the  beholder  shall  have  shifted  his  standpoint 
on  to  higher  planes  of  being. 

"So  all  grow  old  and  die." 

It  is  the  voice  of  Nature — ^the  ultimate  destiny  of 
all  created  beings,  whether  material  or  spiritual.  For, 
as  already  shown,  creation  is  only  another  name  for 
organisation — the  putting  into  organic  forms  of  use 
the  great,  raw,  inorganic  forces  of  the  universe;  and 
when  they  have  fully  subserved  that  use — have  ex- 
hausted these  life  forms  of  their  utility — they  die. 
Otherwise  they  would  be  in  the  way  of  new  forms 
destined  to  take  their  place  when  fully  matured. 

The  sun,  that  traverses  "space"  with  manifold  times 
the  velocity  of  the  swiftest  cannon  ball,  to  procure 
the  raw  materials  upon  which  he  subsists,  and  warms 
and  lights  the  giant  worlds  that  are  anchored  to  him, 
not  only  accomplishes  this  vast  and  important  function 
in  this  way,  but  by  the  same  procedure  he  frees  him- 

50 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

self  from  the  ashes  of  his  fires  (electro-magnetic), 
which  would  otherwise  extinguish  them,  and  in  this 
manner  would  soon  destroy  all  life  not  only  upon  our 
own  little  world,  but  upon  all  the  other  worlds  that 
are  warmed,  illuminated  and  sustained  by  the  solar 
orb  in  his  long  and  mighty  journey  through  the  depths 
of  space. 

For  the  great  and  glorious  sun  does  not,  as  science 
has  wrongly  declared,  feed  his  dependent  worlds  with 
foods  and  forces  derived  from  a  self  consumption  of 
his  own  materials,  as  mariners  are  sometimes  forced 
to  consume  portions  of  the  ship  that  is  to  bear  them 
home  for  lack  of  other  fuel  to  keep  them  warm.  It 
is  a  function  and  not  a  consumption  of  his  own  ma- 
terials that  supplies  him  with  the  vital  forces  and  foods 
that  sustain  his  eternal  fires,  both  for  himself  and  all 
his  worlds,  and  these  foods  and  forces  are  not  wasted 
rnd  exhausted  in  a  vain  effort  to  heat  up  all  surround- 
ing space,  as  science  would  have  it.  But,  being  of  a 
magnetic  and  electric  character,  are  drawn  out  by  an 
electric  attraction  simply  to  the  worlds  themselves,  and 
only  in  sufficient  amounts  to  chemicalize  and  convert 
them  into  caloric  heat  and  light  within  the  atmos- 
pheres of  the  various  worlds  that  are  dependent  upon 
him  for  their  daily  foods,  but  wastes  none  of  his  forces 
to  illuminate  and  warm  up  the  vast  cold  regions  of 
space  that  those  worlds  occupy.  He  gathers  up  the 
raw  materials  of  his  foods  both  from  surrounding 
space  and  from  the  infinite  life  forces  that  eternally 
flow  into  him  from  Deity  Himself.  According  to  the 
statements  of  those  who  have  made  the  ascent  of  high 
mountains,  it  gets  colder  and  darker  as  one  ascends. 
The  farther  one  gets  above  the  earth  and  toward  the 
sun,  the  thinner  become  the  atmospheric  forces  that 
chemicalize  the  solar  rays  and  convert  them  into  heat 
and  light,  so  that  when  the  traveller  has  attained  a 
great  height  he  sees  the  sun  as  quite  a  dull  orb  that  has 
to  a  great  extent  put  aside  the  intense  and  painful 
character  of  his  rays,  so  that  even  at  midday  of  the 
brightest  days  it  becomes  colder  and  darker,  much 
like  the  twilight. 

51 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMGS. 

Another  of  the  serious  errors  of  science,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  lies  in  the  supposition  that  the  planets  situated 
most  remote  from  the  sun  must  of  necessity  enjoy  but 
a  small  amount  of  light  and  heat  from  him. 

But  if  we  consider  the  fact  that  the  amount  of  heat 
and  light  enjoyed  by  the  people  of  these  distant  worlds 
does  not  come  to  these  worlds  in  the  form  of  absolute 
heat  and  light,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  forms  of 
electro-magnetism,  and  that  these  rays  of  the  solar 
orb  are  attracted  to  the  various  worlds  in  kind  and 
quantity,  and  in  proportion  to  the  conditions  of  the 
atmospheres  of  those  worlds,  why  then  it  becomes 
plain  to  see  that  an  infinite  and  all  wise  Creator,  who 
himself  dwelleth  in  and  is  "light  ineffable,"  will  have 
no  difficulty  whatever  in  constituting  these  atmospheres 
chemically  to  make  compensation  for  the  distances  of 
the  various  planetary  bodies,  both  new  and  remote 
from  the  suh,  by  graduating  the  light-producing  ele- 
ments in  each  atmosphere,  not  only  in  harmony  with 
the  distances,  but  also  with  the  sizes  of  the  orbs  that, 
with  the  sun,  constitute  our  solar  system.  Otherwise 
it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  the  Creator  to  get  up 
a  well-ordered  and  well-arranged  system  in  which 
some  of  its  inhabitants  should  not  suffer  from  excess 
of  heat  and  light  while  others  would  experience  great 
inconvenience  from  the  opposite  conditions  of  cold 
and  darkness. 

It  is  a  great  mercy  to  mankind  that  the  worlds  were 
created  by  an  infinite  and  all-wise  God  and  not  by  the 
materialist  with  his  chance-world  and  pull-haul  of  mud. 

"I  do  not  see  any  God  in  your  system  of  creation," 
said  Napoleon  to  Laplace,  who  had  presented  him  with 
a  statement  of  his  views  upon  the  ''Nebular  Theory 
of  Worlds."  "Sire,  it  does  not  require  any  God," 
replied  Laplace. 

And  yet  it  is  said  of  the  great  astronomer  that  he 
never  uttered  the  name  of  the  Supreme  Being  without 
removing  his  hat ! 

Said  a  warm  devotee  of  the  ''Nebular  Theory"  of 
the  origin  of  worlds,  "Given  matter  and  gravity,  and 
all  the  rest  is  easy,"  referring  to  this  half  law,  half 
chance  theory  of  creating  worlds. 

52 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

Just  as  if  gravity  could  so  proteise  itself  by  acting 
at  one  time  in  its  usual  way  of  seeking  the  center  of  the 
cooling,  contracting  body;  and  again,  ''presto,  change!'' 
switching  oir,  side  tracking  a  ring  of  matter  from  the 
mass  of  the  cooling  body,  and  arresting  its  movement 
centerward  and  allowing  the  balance  of  the  mass  to 
continue  on,  fixes  it  stationary  as  to  the  retreating 
mass,  rolls  up  the  ring  into  a  sphere  and  repeats 
these  self-transformations  at  certain  way  stations  along 
the  path  of  the  cooling,  retreating  mass  in  accordance 
with  a  law  indicated  by  the  astronomer  Bode ! 

Could  distress  itself  go  farther  in  its  extremity  to 
find  a  substitute  for  the  directive  intelligence,  wisdom 
and  power  of  an  eternal  God? 

The  account  given  in  Genesis  of  the  creation  of  the 
world  is  a  beautiful  myth,  and  a  very  general  state- 
ment of  the  order  of  procedure  employed  by  the  cre- 
ative wisdoms  (let  us  make  man)  in  the  evolution  of 
our  dear  old  Mother  Earth — and  very  likely  similar  to 
the  methods  pursued  in  the  creation  of  all  other 
worlds. 

Materialism,  fresh  from  the  labors  of  concocting  new 
and  strange  laws  for  getting  rid  of  an  intelligent,  all- 
wise  Creator,  by  ostracizing  Him  from  His  own  glori- 
ous works,  ridicule  the  idea  of  creating  a  great  world 
like  this  in  six  days!  But  the  fault  lies  in  a  great 
measure  at  their  own  doors.  Not  being  able  to  pene- 
trate beneath  the  literal  and  symbolical  sense  of  word, 
they  take  the  symbol  for  the  entire  fact  and  laugh 
at  their  own  mistakes. 

The  geologists  of  spirit  life  inform  me  that  the  "day" 
spoken  of  in  Genesis  is  not  our  diurnal  one  of  twenty- 
four  hours,  but  an  astro-geological  one  of  750,000  oi 
our  years !  So  that  the  time  included  in  the  "six  days" 
amounts  to  four  and  a  half  millions  of  years,  which 
is  quite  a  long  period,  even  in  geological  time. 
But  if  we  consider  the  fact  that  this  creative  period 
sDcken  of  in  Genesis  does  not  becrin  until  a  time  that 
is  after  the  work  of  constructing  the  planet  has  pretty 
well  advanced,  the  part  remaining  to  be  done  being 
chiefly  the  evolution  of  vegetable  and  animal  life  on 

53 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

down  to  the  time  when  man  made  his  appearance 
upon  the  world,  we  shall  discover  that  this  4,500,000 
of  years  is  but  a  part,  and  possibly  a  small  part, 
assigned  by  the  creative  wisdoms  in  the  creation  of  the 
world  and  in  the  development  of  its  flora  and  fauna. 

This  will  become  more  apparent  if  we  reflect  that 
the  manifold  and  varied  forms  of  plant  and  animal 
life  that  inhabit  the  globe  are  not  the  result  of  infinite 
ages  of  infinitesimal  increments  of  change;  but  are 
due  to  transformations  that  take  place  within  the  brief 
cycles  of  months  and  even  days,  as  we  see  them  con- 
stantly taking  place  in  the  plant  and  animal  life  about 
us  in  the  less  permanent  species  or  varieties  of  animal 
and  vegetable  life  of  the  world. 

No  more  conscientious  and  painstaking  scientist  has 
ever  wrought  in  his  field  of  labor  than  Mr.  Darwin, 
to  whom  the  world  is  vastly  indebted  for  the  work 
he  accomplished  in  removing  the  shackles  from  the 
limbs  of  science,  and  made  it  safe  for  the  honest  in- 
vestigator to  freely  pursue  the  paths  of  science  without 
fear  of  auto  da  fe! 

But  Mr.  Darwin,  after  a  long  life  spent  in  experi- 
menting, could  never  produce  a  single  permanent 
species.  But  what  are  varieties  other  than  variable 
species,  some  of  which  in  truth  are  very  difficult  to 
make  vary?  And  it  may  possibly  be  true  that  had 
Mr.  Darwin  been  permitted  to  carry  on  his  investiga- 
tions much  longer  he  might  have  found  one.  But  his 
inability  to  discover  any  may  be  due  to  some  law 
of  parsimony  in  nature,  due  to  the  fact  that  such 
changeless  forms  of  plant  and  animal  life  were  created 
in  the  early  ages  of  the  world  before  its  soils  had 
become  receptive  of  those  stimuli  that  impart  higher 
rnd  more  prolific  powers  of  generation  to  the  indi- 
vidual. But  however  that  may  be,  we  deem  reincar- 
nation to  be  the  ample,  absolute  and  perfect  law  that 
underlies  the  entire  subject  of  the  variations  and  other 
changes  that  take  place  in  vegetal,  animal  and 
human  life,  and  the  principle  involved  in  which  ex- 
tends also  to  the  higher  and  more  perfect  metamor- 
phoses that  exist  upon  the  higher  planes  of  spiritual 

54 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

and  celestial  life.  For  the  Supreme  Being  is  one  and 
the  law  under  which  He  reveals  Himself  is  also  one, 
but  one  that  manifests  itself  under  infinite  variations — 
one  of  the  illogical  theories  that  have  come  down 
to  us  from  the  infancy  of  the  race. 

Indeed,  if  this  theory  be  true,  why,  then,  this  vast 
universe  of  the  living,  infinite  God  that  hath  hitherto 
been  regarded  as  also  infinite,  both  in  numbers  and  in 
extent  is  in  reality  growing  in  both  these  respects  at 
an  amazing  rate,  i.  e.,  in  population  and  in  extent^ 
for  the  one  necessarily  implies  the  other.  In  other 
words,  if  this  infinity  of  worlds  that  we  behold  in  every 
part  of  the  sidereal  heavens  are  employed  in  the  same 
or  similar  office  as  our  own ;  if  they  are  nurseries  and 
kindergsartens  for  the  creation  of  new  men  and  new 
women — and  from  all  that  we  can  learn  of  them  this 
appears  to  be  the  office  which  they  are  destined  by  their 
Creator  to  fulfill — why,  then  the  human  mind  is  unable 
to  escape  from  a  conviction  either  that  the  spiritual 
worlds  whither  all  these  vast  Amazons  and  Mississippis 
of  population  that  come  from  these  unnumbered  worlds 
go  to  discharge  their  infinite  multitudes  of  ''waters" — 
these  spiritual  worlds  also  must,  like  the  vast  new 
populations  they  are  destined  to  provide  room  for,  be 
growing  and  extending  in  a  marvellous  rate !  Or  that 
the  life  of  each  of  these  new  beings  is  of  comparatively 
limited  duration,  and  finds  somewhere,  some  when  and 
somehow  another  end  to  this  cycle  of  our  existence, 
where  it  can  pass  out  of  it  and  thus  relieve  the  wonder- 
ful plethora  created  by  the  vast  crowd  of  new  beings 
that  are  forever  pressing  upward,  on  to  the  higher 
planes  of  existence  from  the  worlds  below !  We  in 
truth  can  see  no  logical  way  to  escape  from  such  illogi- 
cal and  untenable  theories  concerning  the  purposes  and 
uses  that  man  is  evidently  designed  by  the  Creator  to 
fulfill  in  the  functions  and  forces  of  universal  life. 

The  words,  ^'In  the  beginning/^  refer  not  to  the  com- 
mencement of  absolute  or  infinite  time,  as  has  already 
been  shown,  for  no  such  absolute  "beginning"  has  ever 
taken  place  nor  could  take  place.  For  if  the  universe 
or  God  ever  had  to  begin  in  order  to  exist  at  all,  what 

55 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

was  there  anywhere  at  that  time,  if  we  may  be  allowed 
the  expression,  out  of  which  to  create  a  God,  and  who 
\v  as  there  to  do  the  work  ? 

The  greatest  and  most  terrible  mystery  of  all  life 
is  how  it  ever  came  to  exist  at  all ;  how  there  came 
to  be  any  God,  any  universe  whatever.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  so  insoluble  and  unsearchable  a  mystery  the 
loftiest  spirit  of  man  forever  folds  its  wings  and  bows 
its  head !  We  can  only  rationally  conclude  from  a 
careful  study  of  His  manifold  and  marvellous  works 
that  He  is  all  wise,  infinite,  eternal,  omnipotent  and 
unchangeable  as  to  general  laws  by  which  He  admin- 
isters the  worlds,  but  that  this  fixed  and  stable  con- 
dition of  the  forces  that  go  to  make  up  His  Being  do 
not  interfere  with  any  reasonable  understanding  of 
His  freedom  of  action  in  the  affairs  of  creation,  since 
it  is  in  the  light  of  such  freedom  of  work  that  He 
reveals  Himself  to  all  His  children,  the  Father  to  the 
Son,  the  whole  unto  the  part,  since  the  Father  could 
in  no  way  fully  disclose  Himself  to  His  child  without 
stamping  upon  his  tender,  infantile  nature  the  prin- 
cipal forms  and  characters  of  His  own  immutable  and 
eternal  being. 

One  of  the  seemingly  insuperable  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  believing  and  accepting  the  views  of  those 
who  entertain  the  notion  that  every  human  being  that 
is  incarnated  in  this  terrestrial  life  of  ours  is  a 
veritable  ''nozms  homo''  or  nezv  man,  that  has  never 
had  an  existence  in  past  ages,  but  is  destined  to  live  on 
eternally  in  the  future.  For  if  this  view  of  things  be 
the  right  one,  and  if  all  other  worlds  are  performing 
a  like  office,  viz.,  are  engaged  in  the  work  of  creating 
new  beings,  new  men  and  women,  who  are  destined  to 
live  and  move  on  in  an  unending  cycle  that  hath  one 
end,  viz.,  an  absolute  beginning,  but  will  never  be  able 
to  find  another  or  terminus. 


S6 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


DO  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH 
REINCARNATION? 

"I  am  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David,  and  the  bright 
and  morning  star." — Rev.  xxii.,  i6. 

In  treating  this  doctrine  of  the  Reincarnations  of 
Man,  it  will  be  our  purpose  to  pass  by  many  of  those 
passages  in  the  Bible  which  are  held  by  some  to  teach 
this  doctrine,  and  which,  if  they  are  really  designed 
to  do  so,  refer  to  it  in  quite  a  vague  and  uncertain 
way  and  thus  partially  destroy  the  force  of  other  pas- 
sages in  it  whose  meaning  is  so  plain  and  obvious 
that  their  true  intent  and  meaning  can  hardly  be  mis- 
taken. And  probably  no  better  text  can  be  found 
to  begin  with  than  the  one  that  relates  to  the  man  who 
was  born  blind  and  was  cured  by  Jesus,  and  concern- 
ing whom  His  disciples  came  to  Him  afterward  and 
inquired:  **Who  did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents  that 
he  was  (thus)  born  blind?"  Jesus  replies  to  the  ques- 
tion that  was  put  to  him  by  His  disciples  by  placing  the 
responsibility  where  it  justly  belongs,  viz.,  by  the  Cre- 
ator Himself,  who  made  him. 

There  is  yet  another  question  that  comes  up  in  con- 
nection with  this  inquiry  of  the  disciples,  and  just  now 
is  one  that  we  moderns  at  least  feel  a  deeper  interest 
in  than  in  the  other,  and  that  one  is  the  implied 
question  of  pre-existence  and  reincarnation  that  is  in- 
directly involved  in  it,  viz.,  whether  this  loss  of  sight 
in  the  blind  man  was  the  result  of.  some  crime  or  other 
sin  that  the  person  had  been  guilty  of  in  some  prior 
existence. 

But  the  inquiry  put  by  the  disciples  is  one  that  could 
have  been  advanced  by  one  who  fully  believed  not  only 
in  the  Oriental  doctrine  of  pre-existence,  but  also  in 
its  companion  doctrine  of  the  reincarnations  of  man. 

It  not  only  implied  a  belief  in  these  all  important 
views  concerning  the  life  of  man  on  the  part  of  the 

57 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

disciples,  but  more  than  all  this  it  implied  such  a  belief 
on  the  part  of  Jesus  himself,  and  also  a  further  belief 
on  their  part  that  Jesus  so  believed  and  that  they 
had  been  made  aware  of  the  fact  from  the  character  of 
His  previous  teachings. 

No  one  not  a  believer  in  these  doctrines  could  h^ve 
asked  such  a  question,  and  no  one  who  was  so  great 
and  distinguished  a  teacher  of  mankind  as  was  Jesus 
could  have  failed  to  correct  the  views  of  His  disciples 
upon  so  vital  a  point,  involving  as  it  did  the  entire 
spiritual  interests  of  the  human  race.  To  have  omitted 
so  important  an  occasion  to  correct  the  opinions  of 
His  disciples  would  have  been  a  serious  mistake,  if  not 
worse,  against  the  very  highest  spiritual  interests  of 
mankind,  His  disciples  included,  whose  teacher  plenipo- 
tentiary He  professed  Himself  to  be.* 

This  entire  silence  on  the  part  of  Jesus  regarding 
so  great  and  vital  a  doctrine  in  religion  and  philosophy 
can  leave  very  little  doubt  in  the  minds  of  all  candid 
men  that  He  fully  agreed  with  His  disciples  in  these 
views,  which  were  held  not  only  by  all  intelligent  Jews, 
Greeks  and  Romans  who  were  the  contemporaries  of 
Jesus,  but  was,  moreover,  the  leading  belief  among  all 
the  civilized  nations  of  His  times,  and  still  continues 
to  be  such  down  to  the  present  time. 

If  it  be  so  great  a  heresy  as  the  church  of  to-day 
would  have  us  believe^  how  would  it  have  been  pos- 
sible for  Jesus  to  have  failed  to  seize  the  important 
occasion  thus  offered  Him  to  set  not  only  His  disciples, 
but  the  whole  Christian  world,  right  in  these  so  radical 
and  vitally  important  doctrines? 

A  single  brief  sentence  from  Him  at  the  time  would 
have  settled  the  question  for  all  Christendom  and  for 
all  time. 


*"I  am  come  a  light  into  the  world  that  they  that  see 
not  might  see  and  they  that  see  might  be  made  blind.'*  Such 
is  the  tenor  of  all  His  claims  concerning  Himself,  and  to  have 
omitted  the  opportunity  to  set  His  disciples  right  upon  so 
vital  a  question,  and  the  world  through  them,  was  something 
more  than  a  mistake.  It  would  have  been  a  betrayal  of 
civilization  itself! 

58 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

But  the  doctrines  of  pre-existence  and  reincarnation 
are  held  forth  in  the  Scriptures  not  alone  by  indirect 
testimony  of  even  the  strongest  kind.  Neither  does  it 
lean  upon  a  single  text  for  its  support,  but  upon  many, 
and  in  the  plainest  words  that  human  language  can 
give  utterance  to. 

In  Jeremiah,  chap,  i.,  5,  we  find  this  passage:  "Be- 
fore I  formed  thee  in  the  belly  I  knew  thee,  and  before 
thou  earnest  forth  out  of  the  womb  I  sanctified  thee,  and 
ordained  thee  a  prophet  unto  the  nations.'' 

Surely,  those  are  words  plain  enough  so  that  he  who 
*'runs  may  read."  Referring  to  John  the  Baptist  as  rep- 
resenting the  prophet  Elijah  as  Elias  by  incarnation,  as 
the  Jews  had  long  expected  to  come  in  that  way,  Jesus 
said,  Math,  xi.,  14-15:  "If  ye  are  willing  to  receive  it, 
this  (John  the  Baptist)  is  Elias  which  was  for  to 
come.    He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear." 

Again  in  Math,  xvii.,  12:  "But  I  say  unto  you  that 
Elias  has  come  already,  and  they  knew  him  not,  but 
have  done  unto  him  whatsoever  they  listed.  Likewise 
shall  also  the  Son  of  Man  suffer  of  them."* 

Then  the  disciples  knew  that  he  spake  to  them  of 
John  the  Baptist.  Again  in  John,  ist  chapter,  verses 
6-10:  "There  was  a  man  sent  from  God,  whose  name 
was  John.  The  same  came  for  a  witness  to  bear  wit- 
ness of  the  Light  that  all  men  through  him  might 
believe.  He  was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear 
witness  of  that  Light.  That  was  the  true  light  that 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world." 

In  John  X.,  36,  and  elsewhere,  Jesus  applies  similar 
language  to  himself:  "Say  ye  of  him  whom  the  Father 
hath  sanctified  and  sent  into  the  world,  thou  blasphem- 
est  because  I  said  I  am  a  son  of  God?" 

(This  passage  in  John  has  always  been  wrongly 
translated.  Not  the  Son  of  God,  but  a  son  is  the  prop- 
er translation ;  but  a  son — one  of  the  Sons  of  God — is 


I 


*  This  Elias,  or  "John  the  Baptist,"  appears  also  with  Moses 
after  his  assassination  by  Herod,  and  converses  with  Jesus 
at  the  transfiguration,  so  that  at  the  time  of  the  transfigura- 
tion of  Jesus,  Elias  could  have  been  but  a  little  time  in  spirit 
life  after  his  murder  by  Herod, 

59 


MAN'S  PLACE   IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

the  true  rendering  of  this  text.)  The  translators  have 
always  strained  this  passage,  as  they  have  some  others, 
to  make  it  appear  that  he  laid  claim  to  being  the  Infinite 
God  himself,  instead  of  being  "made  like  unto  His 
brethren,"  one  of  the  Sons  of  the  God,  as  the  Scriptures 
declare. 

Did  he  not  teach  all  to  pray:  ''Our  Father  who  art 
in  the  heavens"  ?  As  much  ''our  Father"  as  he  claimed 
Himself  to  be.  And  the  view  should  not  lower  Him  in 
any  view  or  degree  whatsoever,  but  it  does  elevate  man 
and  doth  show  forth  the  glory  and  grandeur  of  the 
destiny  that  awaits  him  in  the  future.  ''For  he  took 
not  on  him  the  nature  (even)  of  angels:  but  he  took 
on  him  the  seed  of  Abraham." 

Yes,  pre-existence  and  reincarnation,  its  companion 
doctrine,  form  the  keynote  of  John's  gospel,  and  if  we 
take  them  in  connection  with  the  metaphysiology  of  the 
Divine  Man  which  runs  all  through  its  wonderful  pages, 
but  more  especially  to  be  found  in  that  last  address  and 
prayer  of  the  Master,  to  be  found  in  the  vi.,  x.,  xiv.,  xv., 
xvi.  and  xvii.  chapters  of  John,  it  makes  his  gospel 
the  most  interesting  and  authoritative  exposition  in 
symbolic  language  of  the  metaphysiology  of  the  divine, 
spiritual  God-man  to  be  found  in  the  whole  world. 

As  containing  the  true  metaphysiology  of  the  Divine 
Man  there  is  nothing  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  all  the 
writings  of  the  sages  of  the  past  that  can  be  com- 
pared with  it — not  even  in  the  works  of  the  great 
Greek  philosopher,  Plato-Socrates.  But  some  one  will 
say  this  doctrine  of  pre-existence,  so  far  as  the  Scrip- 
tures are  concerned,  applies  to  one,  and  only  one — to 
Christ  Himself,  the  very  God.  On  the  contrary,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  not  only  is  the  prophet  John 
spoken  of  in  this  relation  as  one  who,  like  Christ,  was 
"sent  from  God,"  but  so,  likev/ise,  is  the  prophet 
Jeremiah.  We  refer  the  reader  to  Jer.  i.,  5:  "Before 
I  formed  thee  in  the  belly  I  knew  thee:  and  before 
thou  camest  forth  out  of  the  v/omb  I  sanctified  thee 
and  ordained  thee  a  prophet  unto  the  nations." 

That  Jesus  never  intended  to  assume  any  super- 

60 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

human  character  or  powers  is  all  too  plain  from  the 
entire  spirit  of  His  teachings. 

When  Jesus,  after  His  resurrection,  meets  Mary  at 
the  sepulchre,  he  saith  to  her:  "Touch  me  not.  But 
go  to  my  brethren  and  say  to  them,  ascend  to  my 
Father  and  your  Father  and  to  my  God  and  your 
God."  And  it  is  equally  plain  that  His  disciples  re- 
garded Him  in  the  same  light,  as  a  man  "sent  from 
God" — a  minister  and  teacher  plenipotentiary  sent  from 
the  great  Fatherhood  of  the  vast,  infinite  societies  of 
the  spiritual  world  and  bearing  with  him  and  from 
them  the  elements  of  a  new  dispensation,  whose  evo- 
lution involved  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  whole 
human  race.  "Wherefore  in  all  things  it  behoved 
him  to  he  made  like  unto  his  brethren,"  saith  the 
Apostle  Paul. 

The  assumption  that  Jesus  is  the  Supreme  Being 
in  its  totality — He  who  inhabits  the  whole  material 
universe  of  God — is  not  only  contrary  to  all  reason 
and  sound  sense,  but  is  wholly  unthinkable.  But,  as 
Mr.  Webster  once  said:  "There  are  those  who  can 
reason  against  the  sun !" 

''Before  Abraham  was  I  am"  \  No  grander  expres- 
sion ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  man.  But  what  Jesus 
intended  to  say  by  this  beautiful  expression  was  that 
He  was  a  more  advanced  spirit  in  the  organic  societies 
of  the  spiritual  heavens — ranked  higher  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  spiritual  things  than  Abraham. 

So  also  John,  who  ranked  himself  below  Jesus  in 
the  spiritual  heavens,  as  well  as  in  the  world.  "This 
is  He  of  whom  I  spake.  He  that  cometh  aft^r  me  is 
preferred  before  me,  for  he  was  (in  spirit  life) 
before  me,  whose  shoe's  latchet  I  am  not  worthy  to 
unloose." 

Jesus  was  one  of  the  ancient  Fatherhood,  and  had 
more  extended  experience  in  universal  life;  had 
passed  through  a  greater  number  of  incarna- 
tions in  the  present  order  of  the  world's  material 
and  spiritual  estates.  Hence  he  was  the  one 
chosen  as  a  more  advanced  member  of  the 
Fatherhood,  and  the  one  best  prepared  to  lead  the 

6i 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

very  important  movement  originating  in  the  spiritual 
heavens  and  with  the  Vatera,  or  Fathers  of  the  race, 
to  estabUsh  a  more  perfect  reHgion  and  the  primal 
truths  of  a  higher  philosophy  and  a  more  scientific 
spiritual  system  than  any  of  the  great  Avaters  that 
had  preceded  him. 

Among  the  passages  in  John  to  which  we  desire  to 
call  the  attention  of  the  reader  are  several  that  refer 
to  the  physiology  of  the  divine  spiritual  man.  For 
in  truth  and  verity  "there  is  a  natural  (material) 
body  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body,"  as  saith  Paul. 
And  as  there  is  a  physiology  of  the  natural  body,  or 
soma,  so  in  like  manner  is  there  also  a  metaphysiology 
of  the  metaphysical  body,  or  psyche^  or  spiritual  body. 

The  first  to  which  we  refer  the  reader  is  in  John 
vi.,  51-53:  "I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  down 
from  Heaven:  if  any  man  eat  of  this  bread  he  shall 
live  forever,  and  the  bread  that  I  shall  give  him  is 
my  flesh,  which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world." 
The  Jews  said  among  themselves:  "How  can  this 
man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat?"  Jesus  in  reply  said  to 
them:  *'Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  eat 
the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  His  blood, 
ye  have  no  life  in  you." 

We  come  now  to  a  very  remarkable  passage  that  is 
found  in  Rev.  xxii.,  16,  and  is  the  very  last  word 
He  has  ever  been  known  to  give  utterance  to  since 
His  return  to  spirit  life  at  the  time  of  His  resurrec- 
tion: 'T,  Jesus,  have  sent  mine  angel  to  testify  these 
things  in  the  churches :  I  am  the  roof  and  the  offspring 
of  David  and  the  bright  and  morning  star." 

Jesus  here,  in  the  fuller  light  and  more  perfect 
revealment  in  spirit  life  as  to  his  rank  and  office  in 
the  great  forces  of  civilization,  undertakes  to  define 
Himself  more  perfectly,  and  to  put  aside  the  errors, 
many  of  them,  into  which  so  great  a  number  of  his 
followers  have  since  fallen,  both  in  apostolic  and  more 
modern  times. 

When  Jesus  refers  to  Himself  as  being  the  offspring 
of  David,  the  whole  world  knows  what  He  means, 
both  church  people  and  unbelievers.    Though  twenty- 

62 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

eight  generations  of  men  had  come  in  after  the  time 
of  that  Jewish  king,  and  before  Jesus'  time,  He  was 
still  reckoned  as  the  ''offspring'  of  David,  and  was 
such  in  the  true  spiritual  sense  in  which  it  was  in- 
tended to  apply.  If  now  we  will  only  allow  the  same 
rules  of  exegesis  to  apply  to  His  other  declaration, 
that  He  was  also  the  "root"  of  David,  we  shall  not 
only  see  that  He  intends,  by  so  saying,  to  assert  that 
He  had  also  incarnated  at, one  time,  and  that,  too,  in 
]!ast  time,  in  the  same  family  of  that  Jewish  monarch, 
and  hence  constituted  himself  as  the  "root"  of  David. 
For  the  word  root  as  applied  to  human  beings,  signi- 
fies "ancestor,"  or  "progenitor,"  as  defined  by  Web- 
ster, and  these  two  meanings  are  the  only  ones  he 
gives. 

In  this  manner  the  beloved  Christ  refers  to  two  of 
His  own  terrestriations,  or  incarnations,  in  material 
life  forms,  not  intending,  however,  that  it  should  re- 
main as  anything  else  than  as  one  of  the  arcana  of  the 
Word,  until  mankind  at  large  shall  have  arrived  at  a 
larger  and  more  perfect  spiritual  understanding,  when 
not  only  this,  but  many  other  occult  forms  of  the  Di- 
vine Word,  will  be  made  clear  to  the  perceptions  of 
mankind. 

The  church  authorities  of  the  spiritual  world  are  in 
some  respects  holding  back  the  various  churches  of 
the  world  in  the  perception  and  understanding  of  spir- 
itual things,  and  are  holding  them  in  the  liberal  and 
symbolical  sense,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  lower  races 
and  classes  of  mankind. 

It  is  not  intended  by  the  spiritual  leaders  of  the 
church  in  spirit  life  that  mankind  shall  fully  and  prac- 
tically embrace  this  and  many  other  doctrines  of  the 
Word  until  they  have  advanced  to  a  deeper  and  more 
spiritual  perception  of  the  Divine  Word,  not  only  as 
it  exists  in  our  own  scriptures,  but  as  it  has  also  been 
given  in  all  other  religions  and  Bibles  in  all  the  world 
and  in  all  ages.  Jesus  recognizes  this  important  truth 
when  He  says:  ''Other  men  have  labored  and  ye — 
His  disciples — have  entered  into  their  labors." 

Until  mankind  at  large  has  in  this  manner  become 

63 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

more  spiritually  advanced  concerning  the  great  laws  of 
metaphysiology,  it  would  be  somewhat  of  an  injury  to 
them  to  be  brought  too  closely  in  contact  with  some 
of  the  religions  of  the  world.  Hence  the  spiritual 
restraint  in  which  the  churches  of  to-day  are  still 
held. 

For  in  all  truth  and  reason  the  infant  spiritual  man 
cannot  properly  comprehend,  and  spiritually  digest,  the 
spiritual  foods  of  the  more  adult  spiritual  man,  but 
must  be  fed  for  long  ages  on  the  milk  of  the  spiritual 
foods,  and  cannot  take  much  or  many  forms  of  the 
spiritual  meats  and  breads  that  are  ''spiritually  dis- 
cerned" and  eaten  by  the  older  and  more  advanced 
spiritual  men  and  women. 

Such  must  subsist  upon  the  milk  of  the  Word,  and 
other  simpler  forms  of  spiritual  foods.  It  is  for  such 
reasons  that  the  spiritual  heads  of  the  church  in  the 
spiritual  heavens  have  retained  the  church  militant  in 
the  world  for  so  long  a  period  of  time,  living  upon 
the  diluted  forms  of  spiritual  nutrition,  such  as  are 
found  in  the  symbolic  and  other  literal  forms  of  the 
mere  husks  of  the  Word. 

The  interpretation  of  the  sense  in  which  Jesus  in- 
tended the  word  root  should  be  received  by  the 
churches  in  all  due  time  is  confirmed  in  a  manner  in 
Rev.  xix.,  12.  Speaking  of  the  man  Jesus,  John  says : 
"His  eyes  were  as  a  flame  of  fire,  and  on  his  head  were 
many  crowns.  And  he  had  a  name  written  that  no 
man  knew  but  he  himself." 

This  passage  in  Revelation,  were  it  taken  literally, 
would  involve  the  greatest  absurdity.  But  when  it  is 
properly  understood  spiritually,  contains  a  beautiful 
arcanum.  The  ''many  crowns"  spoken  of  in  this  re- 
markable passage  refer  to  the  many  crowned  exis- 
tences, or  re-incarnations,  which  He  had  experienced 
in  the  past. 

That  this  is  what  it  is  intended  to  represent  we  shall 
refer  the  reader  to  Rev.  ii.,  lo: 

"Fear  none  of  those  things  which  thou  shalt  suffer : 
behold  the  devil  shall  cast  some  of  you  into  prison 
that  ye  may  be  tried :  and  ye  shall  have  tribulation 

64 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

ten  days;  but  be  thou  faithful  unto  death  and  I  will 
give  thee  A  crown  of  life  V* 

Again  in  Rev.  iii.,  ii :  ''Behold  I  come  quickly:  hold 
fast  that  which  thou  hast,  that  no  man  take  thy 
crown/' 

The  victors  in  the  gladiatorial  sports  of  the  ancient 
Romans  were  crowned  with  laurels,  and  those  who 
triumphed  in  the  Olympian  games  of  the  Greeks  in 
like  manner  were  similarly  crowned.  So  in  the  spir- 
itual world  a  similar  award  is  given  to  the  man  who, 
at  the  end  of  a  well-spent  life,  has  triumphed  over  all 
his  foes.  He  is  entitled  to  and  receives  a  crown  at 
the  end  of  each  of  his  terrestrial  reincarnations. 

But  these  views  concerning  the  pre-existences  and 
the  reincarnations  of  the  Divine  Man  are  quite  as  strik- 
ingly referred  to  in  Micah  v.,  2,  which  reads  as  fol- 
lows: "And  thou  Bethlehem  Ephratah",  though  thou 
be  little  among  the  thousands  of  Judah,  yet  out  of  thee 
shall  he  come  forth  unto  me,  he  that  is  to  be  a  ruler 
in  Israel:  whose  'goings  forth"  have  been  from  of 
old — FROM  EVERLASTING."  How  grandly,  gloriously 
beautiful  the  expressions ! 

These  expressions,  "come  forth,*'  "goings  forth," 
have  a  distinct  and  peculiar  sense,  and  refer  to  the 
cycles  of  re-births  and  re-embodiments  that  Jesus,  like 
all  other  very  advanced  men,  had  experienced  in  his 
past  eternities  of  being.  In  John  xvi.,  28,  Jesus  uses 
the  same  expression :  "I  *came  forth'  from  the  Father- 
hood (or  Vatera)  and  am  come  into  the  world.  Again 
I  leave  the  world  and  go  to  the  Fatherhood." 

Man  in  his  terrestrial  estates  is  but  a  spiritual  in- 
fant, a  veritable  "Son  of  God,"  and  as  such  belongs 
to  the  spiritual  childhood  of  the  race. 

In  his  nearest  approach  to  the  animal  world,  he  is 
very  little  if  anything  more  than  the  spiritual  larva 
of  a  man.  As  he  advances,  however,  into  the  higher 
and  more  advanced  degrees  of  man  by  repeated  in- 
carnations in  terrestrial  states,  he  at  length  becomes 
sufficiently  progressed  to  enter  the  lower  degrees  of 
the  vast  divine  Fatherhood  of  the  race  which  filleth 
the  entire  spiritual  heavens  with  their  light  and  glory, 

65 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

as  spiritual  Suns  that  create,  warm  and  illuminate  the 
spiritual  and  terrestrial  worlds  and  universes  of  the 
infinite  life  of  God.  That  we  are  not  mistaken  in  at- 
tributing so  vast  and  wonderful  power  to  angelic  men, 
let  the  reader  refer  to  Dan.  iv.,  17,  and  also  to  the  en- 
tire Apocalypse,  where  John  is  shown  the  marvellous 
power  possessed  by  these  angelic  men. 

Again,  if  we  follow  out  this  idea  of  the  Godhood 
and  if  its  infinities  of  societies  and  of  angelic  men,  we 
can  do  no  better  than  to  refer  the  reader  to  the  82d 
Psalm,  6th  verse:  "I  (Jehovah)  have  said,  Ye  are- 
God's  and  all  of  you  are  children  of  the  Most  High.'' 

Jesus  himself  indorses  this  view  to  the  fullest  extent 
when  on  a  certain  occasion,  the  Jewish  mob  were  about 
to  stone  him  for  what  to  them  appeared  to  be  the 
sheerest  blasphemy.  Jesus  replies  to  their  charges  of 
blasphemy  by  quoting  from  this  Psalm  of  David's, 
and  giving  to  it  His  full  sanction,  and  emphasizing  it 
by  appealing  to  their  sense  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
Scriptures  in  which  it  was  written:  **Is  it  not  written 
in  your  law,  I  said  ye  are  God's.'*  Now  if  He  called 
them  Gods  to  whom  the  Word  of  God  came,  viz.,  the 
common  people.  Say  ye  of  Him  whom  the  Father 
hath  sanctified  and  sent  into  the  world,  thou  blas- 
phemest  because  I  said  I  am  a  Son  of  God — not  the 
Son  of  God,  which  is  a  false  translation. 

Yes,  in  this  mistranslation  of  the  words,  "Son  of 
God,"  which  has  no  article,  definite  or  indefinite,  but 
which  was  prefaced  by  the  definite  article  the  is  to  be 
found  one  of  the  principal  errors  in  the  translation 
that  go  to  make  Christ  to  appear  to  be  the  Son  of  God 
in  a  special  and  separate  sense  from  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. It  adds  vastly  to  the  greatness,  grandeur  and 
glory  of  the  man  Jesus,  if  we  accept  Him,  as  did  His 
disciples,  as  an  "elder  brother,"  and  hence  as  one 
that  had  passed  through  many  and  great  experiences 
in  the  realms  of  being,  and  had  come  down  into  our 
little  world  to  instruct  its  people  in  their  low,  ig- 
norant and  savage  conditions. 


66 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 


WHERE  AND  WHAT  IS  HEAVEN? 

"Heaven  lies  all  about  us  in  our  infancy,"  says  the 
poet  Wordsworth,  referring  to  it  in  the  spiritual  sense 
of  the  word.  It  is  also  quite  as  true  in  the  literal  and 
scientific  sense.  The  spiritual  heavens  of  our  planet 
surround  the  earth  in  a  series  (seven  in  number)  of 
concentric  spheres  or  zones  that  extend  sixty  degrees 
north  and  south  from  the  equator  toward  either  pole. 

These  zones  or  belts  are  placed  at  different  distances 
from  each  other  and  from  the  earth,  varying  from  fifty 
miles  near  the  earth  to  many  hundreds  of  miles  each, 
for  the  higher  spheres,  as  I  have  been  informed  by  my 
celestial  teachers. 

These  spheres  or  zones,  as  they  are  termed  in  spirit 
life,  are  very  much  like  our  own  earth  for  the  first  and 
second  spheres. 

They  are  not  only  provided  with  mountain  systems 
very  much  like  those  of  our  own  world,  but  also  with 
streams  of  water,  hills,  valleys,  lakes  and  seas. 

These  lower  spheres — the  first  and  second — have 
not  in  past  times  been  subject  to  much  improvement, 
having  been  abandoned  by  the  higher  classes  and  given 
up  to  the  lower  and  very  lowest  elements  of  humanity, 
as  they  have  been  upon  the  earth  plane  itself;  and  it 
is  this  abandonment  of  the  lower  spheres  to  the  lower 
castes  and  classes,  thus  practically  converting  them 
into  the  dens,  prisons  and  the  slums  of  spirit  life,  that 
has  given  these  dire  abodes  of  spirit  life  their  terrible 
reputation  during  the  long  past  ages,  down  to  quite 
recent  times.  But  within  the  last  three-fourths  of  a 
century  a  new  order  of  things  has  been  growing  up 
amid  those  dread  abodes  of  spirit  men — originated  and 
put  in  operation  by  the  wise  and  the  good  of  spirit 
life,  who  are  now  earnest  and  active  in  the  work  of 
cleaning  up  and  putting  in  order  all  parts  of  the  spirit- 
ual lower  worlds  and  making  them  fit  abodes  for  hu- 
man kind.  Schools,  colleges,  lyceums,  societies  of 
various  kinds  have  been  established  for  the  instruction 

67 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

of  all  classes.  The  Salvation  Army,  which  is  one  of 
the  very  greatest  of  the  educative  and  uplifting  forces 
of  the  life  of  man,  originated  in  the  spirit  world,  and 
is  among  the  greatest,  if  not  the  very  greatest,  of  the 
healing  and  holy  influences  that  are  leading  the  people 
of  the  spirit  world  to  a  newer  and  a  nobler  life. 

General  Booth,  the  man  who  inaugurated  the  "Sal- 
vation Army"  in  our  world,  received,  and  still  receives, 
his  inspirations  from  the  good,  the  great  and  the  wise 
philanthropists  of  that  world,  and  is  wisely  pursuing 
the  same  means  and  methods  employed  by  them  in  the 
work  of  elevating  the  ignorant  and  the  fallen  ones  of 
earth. 

Thousands  upon  thousands  of  the  intelligent,  wise 
and  good  of  spirit  life  are  engaged  in  this  divine  and 
holy  work.  They  descend  from  even  the  very  highest 
spheres  of  spiritual  life  by  myriads  to  assist  in  these 
sublime  and  glorious  labors.  Among  them  are  great 
numbers  of  the  former  kings,  emperors  and  other 
worldly  potentates  who  in  this  life  oppressed  and  im- 
poverished their  peoples,  but  are  now  engaged  in  the 
far  nobler  and  better  work  of  aiding  them  in  getting 
rid  of  their  ignorances  and  their  poverties  and  to 
become  men  and  angels  in  the  divine  uses  they  are 
destined  to  fulfil.  In  this  glorious  work  of  elevating 
the  people  in  the  lower  spheres  the  beloved  "Master," 
who  is  the  President  of  the  Philanthropical  Society  of 
the  Spiritual  World,  bears  an  active  as  well  as  an 
exalted  function.  Some  time  after  his  arrival  in  spirit 
life  he  went  and  "preached  to  the  spirits  in  prison," 
as  has  been  related  of  him  by  the  ApwDstle  Peter. 
But  too  dense  and  dark  a  cloud  of  ignorance  hung 
over  the  lower  spheres  of  the  life  of  man,  and  the  work 
of  evangelizing  those  spheres  was  abandoned  for  the 
time,  and  was  not  resumed  until  a  little  more  than 
a  half  century  ago — fifty-five  years — when  the  spirit- 
ual heavens  were  again  opened  to  all  who  were  able 
and  willing  to  receive  the  new  revealments  from  the 
spiritual  world  which,  for  the  sake  of  the  protection 
of  the  Divine  Word  and  the  infant  spiritual  man 
against  the  misconceptions   and   ignorances   of  both 

68 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

worlds,  and  especially  of  those  coming  from  the  spirit- 
ual world,  the  spiritual  heavens  had  of  necessity  been 
closed  up  until  such  times  as  the  understandings  of 
men  and  the  progress  of  the  sciences  should  render  it 
safe  to  reopen  them  again,  especially  to  such  as  are  of 
honest,  earnest  and  candid  minds. 

At  that  time  Jesus  answered  and  said:  "I  thank 
thee.  Oh  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  because 
thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent, 
and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes/' 

The  doors  of  the  spiritual  world  were  opened  dur- 
ing the  time  of  the  Master,  and  for  a  brief  period  af- 
terward, during  apostolic  times,  for  the  purpose  of 
working  those  miracles  which  were  wrought  to  aid 
in  the  establishment  of  Christianity  upon  a  sure 
foundation,  and  were  shortly  afterward  closed  again 
until  advancing  science,  and  man  himself,  should  have 
made  a  degree  of  progress  that  would  render  such 
vigilant  guarding  of  the  "gates  of  day"  unnecessary 
for  all  advanced,  intelligent  minds,  while  prejudice 
and  self-interest  would  take  care  of  the  rest. 

For  in  deed  and  truth  do  ''all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  them  that  serve  God."  Yea,  all  things. 
"From  seeming  evil,  still  educing  good,"  in  the  words 
of  beloved  Milton. 

I  have  been  informed  by  my  spirit  guides  that  the 
''zodiacal  light"  which  surrounds  our  sun  and  ex- 
tends outward  hundreds  of  millions  of  miles,  accord- 
ing to  some  astronomers,  is  the  true  basis  of  our  more 
permanent  spiritual  heavens.  The  spiritual  heavens 
of  our  own  little  planet  earth,  with  its  seven  concen- 
tric spheres,  extends  only  about  1,500  miles  outward 
into  surrounding  space.  On  the  other  hand,  the  solar 
spiritual-celestial  heavens  of  our  suny  when  fully  com- 
pleted, will  occupy  many  billions  of  miles  in  extent  in 
its  several  axes — major,  minor  and  transverse. 

It  is  a  spheroid,  both  prolate  and  oblate  in  form, 
that  surrounds  our  sun  on  all  sides  of  him,  extending 
to  vast  distances  beyond  him,  and,  like  the  material 
earth's  also,  is  one  of  the  manifold  attendant  worlds 

69 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

that  surrounds  our  sun  on  all  sides  of  him,  extending 
through  the  infinite  fields  of  space. 

For  our  system  of  worlds,  both  the  major  and 
minor  planets  and  their  dependent  baby  worldlets, 
together  with  the  sun  himself,  from  a  universe  that 
is  still  very  young;  many  of  its  parts  are  yet  very  in- 
complete; and  the  spiritual  universes  also  share  with 
the  more  material  orb*  themselves  in  their  youth  and 
their  incompleteness. 

But  I  hear  some  objector  say:  "Why  is  it  that,  if  the 
spirit  worlds,  as  you  say,  lie  all  around  about  us  on 
every  side,  that  we  cannot  see  them  ?"  In  reply  we  will 
say  that  it  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  flesh  and  spirit — 
matter  and  spirit,  which  amounts  to  the  same  things — 
are  spiritual  incompatihles,  so  that  the  one  can  not 
see  or  "discern"  the  other — neither  the  Hesh  the  spirit 
nor  the  spirit  the  Hesh,  save  in  a  very  limited  degree 
and  way. 

For  there  are  spiritual  incompatihles  r.nd  chemical 
incompatihles,  and  the  inability  of  the  flesh  to  see  or 
"discernf*  spiritual  things,  and  the  inability  of  the 
spirit  to  see  and  fully  comprehend  material  things,  has 
always  been  a  very  great  mystery  and  a  stumbling 
block  to  the  greatest  minds  in  all  ages  of  the  world 
as  Paul,  one  of  the  greatest  of  theologians,  has  given 
ample  testimony  in  his  epistle  to  the  Romans  in  chap- 
ters vii.  and  viii. 

It  is  true  they  have  a  limited  ability  to  cognize  each 
the  other,  but  a  quite  limited  one  indeed,  especially 
so,  in  truth,  in  regard  to  the  ability  or  more  strictly 
speaking,  the  inability  of  matter  to  discern  the  things 
of  the  spirit. 

Has  not  the  materialistic  philosopher  been  blindly 
and  busily  at  work  delving  in  the  mud  of  earth  and 
skies,  looking  for  the  source  of  all  spiritual  things 
without  the  ability  to  find  them?  As  a  chemist  at  an 
early  day  he  informed  the  world  that  the  oils  of  pep- 
per and  of  turpentine  were  the  same  things,  although 
poor,  unscientific  mortals  were  unable  to  see  it,  or 
rather  to  feel  it  in  that  light. 

Poor  pseudo  science  also  made  the  same  mistake 

70 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

concerning  the  identity  of  the  white  diamonds  with 
which  the  fair  lady  adorns  her  person,  and  the  black 
diamonds  with  which  she  warms  herself  at  the  parlor 
stove.  "They  are  the  same !"  says  chemistry.  Pseudo 
science  endeavors  to  explain  by  saying  that  this  mar- 
vellous difference  in  the  physical  properties  of  the 
twain  substances  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  minute 
globules  of  carbon,  etc.,  are  differently  arranged  in 
the  two  substances,  and  hence  the  wonderful  differ- 
ence in  results.  But  the  philosophic  mind  whose  eye- 
sight has  not  been  blurred  by  too  much  and  long  delv- 
ing in  nebular  and  other  forms  of  matter  to  find  the 
rootlets  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  will  naturally  in- 
quire :  "But  how  came  it  about  that  these  hypothetical 
globules  of  matter  have  been  so  differently  placed  and 
arranged  in  the  one  substance  than  in  the  other,  and 
what  was  the  placing  force  that  could  arrange  them  so 
differently  as  to  create  such  marvellous  differences  in 
the  results?* 

We  look  in  vain  in  all  the  scientific  works  for  an 
explanation  of  this  wonderful  phenomenon  in  the  oc- 
cult relations  of  mind  and  matter,  a  fact  easy  enough 
to  "discern,"  if  we  can  only  lay  aside  our  preconceived 
notions  and  examine  the  subject  in  the  light  of  pure 
reason ! 

This  mysterious  force  that  handles  the  delicate 
globules  of  carbon  so  deftly,  and  with  so  wonderful 
and  scientific  exactness — what  is  it  in  truth,  if  not  the 
soul  itself  that  science  hath  been  looking  for  these 
past  thousands  of  years,  and  looking  in  vain,  for  the 
very  true  yet  simple  reason  that  it  is  not  physically 
''discerned,"  but  spiritually.     For  all  things  that  are 

*  Wherever  there  is  a  deed — something  done — there  of  ne- 
cessity is  a  doer.  Wherever  there  is  an  effect  there  is  also 
a  cause  that  produced  it.  Just  as  sure  as  night  follows  day,  or 
the  body  which  released  from  the  hand  falls  to  the  earth. 

And  what  are  these  occult  forces  that  thus  differentiate  the 
two  bodies  of  carbon  in  this  wonderful  way:  what  are  they 
but  two  very  different  spirit  souls  that  in  some  mysterious 
way  have  been  for  a  time  lodged  in  bodies  of  carbon,  and 
in  doing  so  were  compelled  to  temper  and  conform  them  to 
their  own  forms  and  modes  of  living  or  modus  vivendi, 

71 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

hath  both  a  soul  and  a  body  and  the  twain  both  see  and 
understand,  and  yet  eternally  misunderstand ,  each 
other,  since  one  of  them,  being  but  a  product  of  the 
other,  fits  it  so  exactly  as  its  material  counterpart  that 
unless  the  cognizant  mihd  can  discern  the  distinguish- 
ing marks  that  diagnose  the  twain,  he  will  confound 
this  mechanical  coincidence  of  the  twain  as  absolute 
proof  of  an  exact  coincidence  of  being.  Hence  a 
denial  of  the  existence  of  soul.  And  hence  this  denial 
of  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  organic  interior  force, 
that,  under  the  guidance  of  the  higher  creative  ener- 
gies of  life  universal,  organizes  and  upbuilds  all  ma- 
terial things  out  of  the  raw  material  forces  of  chaotic 
life.  This  is  where  the  materialist  lost  his  way,  and 
with  his  dim  lantern,  has  been  floundering  around  ever 
since  in  the  mud  and  mire  of  the  external  world,  tak- 
ing another  look  to  discover  his  lost  path.  But  he  will 
do  vastly  better  bye  and  bye.  He  will  go  to  the  higher 
hills  of  life  for  a  new  standpoint  and  point  of  de- 
parture, and  begin  his  search  over  again  in  pursuit 
of  his  lost  path,  and  will  extend  his  investigations, 
many  of  them,  to  fields  that  he  never  dreamed  of 
before. 


WHAT  ARE  THE  HELLS? 

IN  VERY  GENERAL  TERMS. 

They  are  the  lower  workshops  of  the  race,  where, 
growing  out  of  his  early  incarnations  in  terrestrial 
estates  and  upon  the  human  plane,  he  encounters  vast 
evils,  antagonisms,  inharmonies,  hardships,  untold 
deeps  of  sorrows,  pains,  anguishes  that  often  crush 
the  very  heart  of  man ;  he  is  set  to  work  by  the  higher 
powers  as  a  slave  to  man  and  even  to  nature  herself  in 
labors  manifold  and  severe,  to  educate  his  mind,  brain, 
nerve,  muscle,  bone,  sinew  and  to  give  him  the  will  as 
well  as  the  ability  to  labor ;  and  to  put  the  steel  and  the 
granite  into  the  deep  foundations  of  his  being,  and  to 

7^  • 


MAN'S  PLACE   IN   THE   KOSMOS. 

give  him  that  energy  and  hardihood  that  are  indispen- 
sable to  his  requirements  by  enabling  him  to  bridge 
over  the  eternities  of  existence  that  lie  before  him. 

The  creative  intelligences  of  spirit  life  had  dandled 
him  upon  the  lap  of  nature ;  the  whoie  habitable  world 
within  the  tropics  had  indeed  been  a  veritable  "Garden 
of  Eden,"  where  his  spiritual  guides  and  teachers  had 
provided  "every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight  and 
good  for  food."  The  tree  of  life  also  was  in  the  midst 
of  the  garden,  and  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil.  He  had  nothing  farther  to  do  in  order  to  live 
in  abundance  than  to  put  forth  his  hand  and  pluck 
the  fruits  that  nature  had  provided  for  him,  and  every 
animal  want  was  fully  satisfied. 

It  was  during  the  pliocene  period  of  Tertiary  times 
that  man  made  his  advent  upon  the  planet,  and  there 
was  an  almost  tropical  climate  over  the  entire  planet 
nearly  to  the  poles,  and  tropical  fruits  grew  in  abun- 
dance for  the  use  of  animal  man  over  the  entire  area 
of  this  vast  garden. 

But  man,  though  he  came  forth  from  the  animal 
world,  which  was  the  scaffolding  by  which  the  crea- 
tive wisdoms  had  built  him  up,  and  his  whole  nature 
was  animal-like  in  character,  was  something  more  than 
a  progressed  ape. 

God,  the  supreme  architect  of  the  worlds,  though 
making  use  of  the  "dust  of  the  earth'* — protoplasm — 
as  his  building  material,  yet  ere  he  completed  his  di- 
vine labors  in  creating  man,  he  ''breathed  into  his  nos- 
trils the  breath  of  life'' — the  divine  pneuma.  "And 
man  became  a  living  soul" — a  vastly  greater  and  more 
advanced  being  than  any  of  the  animal  forms  below 
him  and  out  of  which  he  sprang. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  man  could  no  longer  be 
permitted  to  live  upon  the  labors  of  others,  eating  the 
fruits  of  the  labors  of  the  gods  and  lying  around  in 
the  shade  when  satisfied  with  abundance,  like  any 
other  mere  animal,  without  spiritual  intelligence,  with- 
out thought,  without  reflection  and  without  the  ability 
to  discriminate  between  good  and  evil — a  little, 
though  not  much,  above  the  mental  and  moral  status 

73 


^IBUA 


or  THE     "^  ^ 

UNIVERSITY  ^ 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

of  the  higher  orders  of  the  anthropoid  apes.  The  child 
has  to  be  weaned  from  this  state  of  being  dandled  for- 
ever on  the  lap  of  mother  nature,  and  set  to  work  to 
earn  his  own  living  by  his  own  labor,  and  very  hard 
labor  it  has  proved  to  be. 

The  serpent,  that  most  ''subtle,"  crafty  and  insinu- 
ating principle  in  the  interior  of  the  life  of  man,  is 
prompted  to  tempt  him  to  ''eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil/'  that,  like  the  tree  of 
life,  grew  in  the  garden  of  man's  being.  But  this  is 
the  very  thing  desired  and  sought  for  by  the  higher 
powers  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  it  is  really  due  to 
their  promptings  that  this  ''subtle,"  serpentine  element 
in  man's  nature  is  set  in  motion  and  becomes  active 
with  the  desire  to  become  "as  gods,  knowing  good 
and  evil."  , 

This  threatening  command  on  the  part  of  the  Lord 
God  is  addressed  to  the  man  as  an  animal  being 
merely — one  who  has  not  reached  the  spiritual  status 
to  discern  "between  good  and  evil."  "Of  every  tree 
of  the  garden  thou  mayest  freely  eat:  But  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  thou  shalt  not  eat  of 
it:  for  in  the  day  thou  eatest  of  it  thou  sPuUt  surely 
die."  Now,  as  a  historic  being,  this  man  Adam  does 
not  die  at  all,  either  on  the  day  when  he  ate  the  apple, 
or  on  any  other  day  of  the  930  years  of  his  natural  life. 

And  yet  the  prophecy  of  the  Lord  was  literally  ful- 
filled, the  spiritual  eyes  of  the  man  were  opened,  and 
he  at  once  began  to  see  spiritual  things,  and  his  mere 
animal  nature  began  to  "fall"  from  him,  and  as  it 
falls  the  spiritual  man  within  him  riseSy  and  will  con- 
tinue to  rise  until  the  whole  man  has  been  transformed 
from  the  nature  of  an  animal  to  that  of  the  God,  and 
he  has  been  transferred  from  the  low  plane  of  animal 
desires,  affections  and  knowledges  to  the  high  spiritual 
planes,  loves,  wisdoms  and  intelligences  of  the  Gods 
of  the  race. 

Yes,  all  these  gigantic  evils  of  every  sort  and  kind 
which  man  has  experienced  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
is  encamped  on  the  great  battlefield,  and  is  engaged  in 
the  mighty  conflict  that  is  forever  taking  place  be- 

74 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

tween  truth  and  error,  light  and  darkness,  the  animal 
and  the  spiritual  within  him  and  without  him,  until  he 
has  fought  his  way. 

Upward  from  the  material  and  terrestrial  planes 
of  existence  and  on  to  the  high  social,  spiritual  and 
celestial  planes  of  his  being.  Yes,  all  the  mighty  evils 
of  any  form  and  kind  that  man  has  experienced  in 
the  long  ages  of  the  past  have  been  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  his  growth,  progress  and  welfare  as  a 
spiritual  being.  It  required  an  educatory  period  of 
more  than  200  years  and  in  a  state  of  slavery  to  edu- 
cate the  colored  men  of  this  country  mentally  and 
physically  up  to  a  grade  where  he  is  capable  of  taking 
care  of  himself  as  a  physical  being  and  to  impart  to 
him  some  of  the  ideas  and  principles  of  self-govern- 
ment. And  yet  this  cannot  be  said  of  all  of  them, 
a  large  per  cent,  of  whom  have  not  reached  that 
standard  in  performing  the  divine  uses  of  labor  and 
in  the  matter  of  a  just  and  righteous  self-government; 
but  few  of  them,  comparatively  speaking,  have  as  yet 
manifested  the  ability  to  do  it.  Yes,  upon  the  political 
and  civil  planes  of  being,  the  colored  man,  not  of  this 
country  alone,  but  of  nearly  all  other  countries,  is  on 
a  still  lower  plane  of  evolvement,  so  that  his  white 
brother  is  obliged  to  serve  as  a  prop  to  prevent  him 
from  falling  into  anarchy,  as  they  have  done  in  Haiti 
and  other  Southern  countries,  where  revolution  suc- 
ceeds revolution  with  greater  frequency  than  the  ad- 
vent of  the  years,  after  more  than  a  century  of  self- 
government,  or  self-anarchy,  rather,  that  is  found  no- 
where else  in  all  the  world. 

These  are  some  of  the  divine  uses  of  labor  and  of 
the  so-called  hells  of  both  the  spiritual  and  the  terres- 
trial sides  of  this  our  life  in  the  flesh.  Terrible  as  are 
some  of  the  so-called  hells  of  spirit  life,  the  purposes 
they  are  intended  to  subserve  in  the  economies  of  uni- 
versal life  are  analogous  to  those  performed  by  the 
jails,  penitentiaries  and  prisons  of  earth  life,  though 
at  the  present  time  less  primitive  and  more  reforma- 
tive in  character. 

In  the  time  of  Jesus  the  condition  of  the  ignorant 

75 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

and  the  criminal  classes  in  the  lower  spheres  of  spirit 
life  was  indeed  very  bad.  As  Jesus  could  give  man- 
kind no  definite  idea  of  the  character  of  the  sufferings 
of  human  beings  in  spirit  life,  he  was  obliged  to  make 
use  of  highly  wrought  symbols  to  express  his  sense 
of  the  nature  of  man's  sorrows  and  sufferings  in  spirit 
life,  and  his  views  so  expressed  have  been  greatly 
exaggerated  and  misrepresented  by  the  dense  spiritual 
ignorance  of  mankind  and  by  many  mistranslations  of 
the  Word  itself.  But  mankind,  the  more  spiritual- 
advanced  classes,  have  progressed  beyond  their  ^spirit- 
ual-larval estates,  and  the  large  influx  of  these  ad- 
vanced classes  into  spirit  life  during  several  centuries 
past  is  fast  producing  a  new  order  of  things  in  spirit 
life,  and  vastly  to  the  enlightenment,  progress  and 
welfare  of  all  classes,  and  especially  of  the  lower 
classes. 

Yes,  the  infant  spiritual  man  of  this  time  is  shaped 
and  shaping  himself  beneath  the  hammer  of  the 
celestial  intelligences — is  fitting  himself  to  enter  into 
more  perfect  and  harmonial  relations  with  the  higher 
Gods  of  the  race  and  with  his  fellows.  It  is  the  advent 
of  the  spiritual  millennium  so  long  prophesied  of,  and 
which  is  destined  to  bring  in  the  ''new  heavens  and  the 
new  earth." 

Swedenborg's  greatest  mistake,  however,  concern- 
ing the  hells  of  spirit  life,  very  naturally  and  in  great 
measure  grew  out  of  his  aristocratic  relations  and 
sympathies,  his  lack  of  sympathy  with  the^  lower 
classes,  and  more  especially  the  sinful  classes  of  hu- 
manity, and  his  belief  in  common  with  the  beliefs  of 
the  churches,  and  also  of  his  spirit  guides  and  in- 
structors in  the  spiritual  world;  and  of  mankind  at 
large,  viz.,  that  the  sinner  as  such  is  not  so  as  an 
expression  in  time  and  in  world  of  forces  that  were 
put  into  him  before  he  was  born  by  creative  and 
hereditive  influences,  but  that  he  is  such  from  a  known 
and  an  intentional  bad  use  of  his  moral,  mental  and 
spiritual  faculties,  and  from  hatred  and  disregard  of 
the  laws  of  God  and  humanity. 

It  was  a  moral  badness  that  he  put  into  himself, 

7^ 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS. 

with  which  his  Creator  had  nothing  to  do  in  the  way 
of  responsibility. 

They  forget  the  statement  of  Christ:  *'A  good  tree 
cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit ;  neither  can  a  corrupt  tree 
bring  forth  good  fruit — for  a  tree  is  known  by  its 
fruit." 

It  is  with  the  morally  unhealthy  as  Jesus  put  it  in 
behalf  of  the  man  born  blind.     We  must  allow  the 
Creator  to  share  a  great  part  of  the  responsibility  in 
the  case,  if  not  the  whole  of  it,  as  did  Jesus.    ''Neither 
this  man  did  sin  nor  his  parents,  but  that  the  works 
of  God  might  be  made  manifest  in  him."     Yes,  this 
lack  of  moral  and  spiritual  perception  on  the  part  of 
the  sinner  cometh  not  from  any  intentional  badness 
that  in  some  mysterious  way  he  has  got  into  himself. 
It  is  due  nearly  if  not  wholly  to  the  exercise  of  forces 
that  were  put  into  him  long  before  he  ever  saw  the 
light  of  day;  and  to  the  fact  that  he  has  never  ex- 
perienced the  refining  and   potentizing  influences   of 
a  sufficient  number  of  incarnations  in  terrestrial  and 
spiritual  spheres  of  life  to  lift  him  up  onto  the  higher 
planes   of   spiritual   life.     Take  the   worst  murderer 
that  world  or  universe  has  produced  and  give  him  a 
few   more   reincarnations   in  terrestrial   and   spiritual 
life  forms,  and  you  will  find  him  somewhere  in  one  of 
the  higher  ranks  of  mankind.    Said  a  little  lady  theos- 
ophist  to  one  who  had  manifested  very  bad  manners 
in  her  presence:  "You  will  do  better  when  you  are 
grown !"     Yes,  man  is  a  spiritual  being  that  revolves 
in  the  eternities  and  infinities  of  universal  life,  and 
requires  vast  periods  of  time  to  bring  him  up  to  the 
stature  of  the  God.     Let  us  therefore  be  patient  and 
give  him  all  the  time  he  may  require  to  reach  the 
period   of  perfect   self-government,   and   not  be   too 
much  annoyed  or  distressed  at  the  antics,   cruelties 
and  other  barbarisms  of  the  spiritual  infant,  for  "all 
babies  are  barbarians,"  as  some  one  has  well  said. 

This  idea  that  man  advances  in  spiritual  life  and 
growth  by  repeated  reincarnations  is  somewhat  eluci- 
dated by  both  John  the  Baptist  and  by  Jesus  himself. 
To  quote  from  the  words  of  John:  "And  this  is  the 

77 


MAN'S  PLACE   IN   THE   KOSMOS. 

record  of  John  when  the  Jews  sent  priests  and  Levites 
from  Jerusalem  to  ask  him,  Who  art  thou?  John 
bare  witness  of  him  and  cried  saying,  This  is  he  of 
whom  I  spake.  He  that  cometh  after  me  is  pre- 
ferred before  me,  for  he  was  before  me."  This  second 
use  of  the  word  "before''  has  a  different  meaning  from 
the  one  used  in  the  first  part  of  the  sentence*  and  has 
a  similar  use  and  meaning  to  one  given  to  it  by  Jesus 
himself  in  John  viii.,  58:  ''Before  Abraham  was  I 
am."  He  does  not  refer  to  the  number  of  years  he 
had  lived  in  the  world  during  his  present  incarnation, 
but  to  the  more  important  fact  that  he  v/as  really  an 
older  spirit  than  was  Abraham,  by  virtue  of  the  fact 
that  he  was  an  older  spirit  than  Abraham  in  having 
passed  through  a  greater  number  of  incarnations,  two 
of  which,  as  we  shall  see  elsewhere,  he  has  referred 
to  in  his  very  last  words — Rev.  xxii.,  16. 

Yes,  it  is  a  question  of  the  number  of  incarnations 
the  person  has  passed  through  that  determines  his 
mental  and  moral  status,  and  not  one  of  intentional 
vileness  or  badness  that  make  some  people  good  and 
others  bad.  They  have  not  yet  fully  cast  out — and 
off — the  animal  man  which  they  brought  up  with 
them  out  of  the  animal  world  from  v/hich  they  origin- 
ally came,  and  whose  knowledges,  though  manifold 
and  keen,  do  not  include  among  them  the  higher  wis- 
doms and  knowledges  of  ''good  and  evil."  The  earlier 
forms  of  man  upon  the  planet  did  not  possess  the 
ability  to  discriminate  between  good  and  evil,  which 
is  true  in  great  measure  of  some  of  the  lowst  forms  of 
mankind  that  exist  upon  the  planet  at  the  present 
tim6 

The  creative  intelligence  in  drawing  the  line  of  the 
comparative  mental  powers  of  man  and  the  animal 
world  below  him,  drew  it  at  the  line  of  demarcation 
between  "good  and  evil"  on  the  one  hand,  and  all 
other  inferior  forms  of  intelligence  on  the  other.  And 
yet  there  are  some  animals  that  appear  in  many  cases 


*  The  one  refers  to  time  and  the  other  to  spiritual  con- 
ditions. 

;8 


MAN'S  PLACE   IN   THE   KOSMOS.     ' 

to  manifest  faint  perceptions  of  good  and  evil  and  of 
a  rational  intelligence. 

This  earliest  form  of  mankind,  who  lived  in  the 
Tertiary  era,  when  the  climate  of  the  earth  was  tropi- 
cal nearly  to  the  poles,  and  as  a  consequence  the  whole 
world  nearly  was  a  veritable  "garden,"  is  the  ''Adam'' 
or  earth-man  of  Genesis,  and  typifies  the  animal  na- 
ture that  is  in  man.  The  entire  story  of  the  origin  of 
man  as  given  in  Genesis  is  a  beautiful  mythy  and  we 
can  make  nothing  rational  out  of  it,  unless  we  carry 
the  wonderful  symbolism  all  the  way  through. 

Another  of  the  leading  and  very  wuleading  mis- 
takes of  Swedenborg  is  found  in  paragraph  N.  480 
of  his  work  on  Heaven  and  Hell,  in  which  he  gives 
the  reason  why  man  is  unable  to  escape  from  the  hells 
of  spirit  life  by  progression  into  the  higher  spheres  of 
the  spiritual  life  of  man. 

We  quote:  "That  man  after  death  remains  to 
eternity  such  as  he  is  as  to  his  will  or  reigning  love, 
has  also  been  confirmed  by  abundant  expe- 
rience.    .     .     . 

"It  was  said  by  the  angels  that  the  life  of  the 
reigning  love  is  never  changed  with  any  one  to 
eternity,  since  every  one  is  his  own  love.  To  change 
that  love  in  a  spirit,  therefore,  would  be  to  deprive 
him  of  his  life.  They  also  told  me  the  reason,  namely, 
that  man  after  death  can  no  longer  be  reformed  by  in- 
struction as  in  the  world,  because  the  ultimate  plane 
(or  material  body),  which  consists  of  natural  knowl- 
edges and  affections,  is  then  quiescent  and  cannot  be 
opened,  because  it  is  spiritual,  and  that  upon  thai; 
plane  the  interiors,  which  are  of  the  mind,  rest  as  a 
house  upon  its  foundation;  and  hence  it  is  that  man 
remains  to  eternity  such  as  the  life  of  his  love  had 
been  in  the  world." 

Such  are  some  of  the  chief  reasons  by  which 
Swedenborg  seeks  to  demonstrate  the  eternality  of 
the  so-called  hells  of  man  in  spirit  life  whereby  God 
and  his  mercy,  love,  compassion,  tenderness,  his  senti- 
ments of  reason  and  justice,  are  forever  barred  out, 
and  the  Creator  himself,  the  universal  Father — ^He 

79 


■MAN'S  PLACE  IN   THE  KOSMOS, 

whose  compassion  is  called  forth  even  by  the  fall  of 
a  sparrow — becomes  the  victim  of  an  iron  fatalism 
from  which  there  is  no  escape  for  him  to  all  eternity! 

That  Swedenborg,  great  as  he  undoubtedly  was, 
was  in  some  way  greatly  misled  by  his  spirit  teachers, 
chief  among  whom  was  St.  Augustine,  who  in  this 
life  was  a  fatalist  in  his  church  views,  of  the  most 
pronounced  character,  and  exerted  a  more  powerful 
influence  in  shaping  the  creeds  of  Christendom  than 
all  the  other  church  fathers  together,  there  can  be 
little  reasonable  doubt.  Such  a  doctrine  shocks  every 
sentiment  of  justice,  reason  and  fair  play  that  exists 
in  the  heart  of  man.  It  is  a  terrible  libel  upon  the 
character  of  the  Creator — an  awful  travesty  on  the 
character  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  It  would  render 
migratory — nay,  worse  than  useless,  the  mission  of 
the  Master  into  Hades  after  his  return  to  spirit  life 
to  *'preach  to  the  spirits  in  prison,"  as  stated  by  Peter, 
I.  Pet.  iii.,  19,  20.  The  attempt  to  preach  repentance 
and  reform  to  men  and  women  whom  the  eternal 
laws  of  God  had  forever  precluded  from  all  hope,  all 
chance  of  change  in  the  betterment  of  their  spiritual 
conditions,  would,  in  our  estimation,  be  about  the 
worst  case  of  tantalism  that  ever  struck  time  since  the 
days  of  Tantalus  himself.  - 

Swedenborg  also,  like  the  poet  Dante,  wrote  upon 
the  doors  of  the  hells  of  spirit  life:  ''Leave  hope  he- 
hind,  all  ye  who  enter  hereV  His  ideas,  if  true, 
would  colonize  the  greater  portion  of  God's  great 
family  of  children  in  eternal  fire ! 

Can  such  an  awful  state  of  things  be  true,  and 
would  it  not  involve  all  the  other  man-breeding  worlds 
in  a  like  calamity,  unless  the  Creator  has  given  them  all 
better  terms  and  conditions  for  the  evolution  of  their 
peoples  than  He  hath  given  to  our  own  dear  little 
world?  But  this  would  hardly  be  just  and  fair.  We 
cannot  believe  it. 

But  let  us  examine  this  matter  of  these  mistakes  of 
the  seer  Swedenborg  from  still  another  viewpoint. 

It  is  a  rather  curious  circumstance  in  the  life  of 
John  Wesley  that  he  received  at  one  time  a  satin  note 

80 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

from  Swedenborg  not  long  before  his  death,  in  which 
he  invited  him  to  an  interview  with  himself,  naming 
the  hour  and  place  (at  his  hotel  in  London)  for  the 
meeting,  and  informing  him  that  the  angels  of  the 
Sixth  Circle  had  informed  him  that  Wesley  had  long 
desired  to  have  such  an  interview,  and  had  requested 
him  (Swedenborg)  to  grant  Wesley  the  opportunity 
to  realize  his  wish.  Wesley  at  the  time  was  in  a  con- 
ference of  his  preachers  when  he  received  the 
note,  which  he  at  once  read  to  the  conference,  and 
admitted  that  Swedenborg's  statement  was  true,  and 
that  he  had  long  felt  a  desire  to  have  such  an  inter- 
view with  the  great  seer,  but  had  never  mentioned  the 
matter  to  anyone  before.  He  at  once  sent  a  note  to 
Swedenborg  in  reply,  informing  him  that  he  was  about 
to  visit  a  distant  conference  and  could  not  meet  him 
then,  but  would  meet  him  upon  his  return.  Sweden- 
borg at  once  replied  with  a  second  note  to  Wesley 
stating  that  before  the  time  named  for  his  return  from 
the  conference  he  himself  would  have  passed  to  spirit 
life,  which  in  the  sequel  proved  to  be  true. 

In  this  way  the  great  apostle  of  the  masses  who 
live  spiritually  upon  the  literal  and  exoteric  sense  of 
the  word,  and  Swedenborg  the  great  apostle  of  its 
interior,  spiritual  and  esoteric  sense,  were  never — for 
some  reason — permitted  to  meet  each  other  and  hold 
the  interview  that  both  greatly  desired. 

Shall  we  raise  the  question,  why?  To  one  who  be- 
lieves in  a  Providence  that  oversees  and  overrules  all 
the  affairs  of  men,  and  especially  in  all  great  and  im- 
portant events,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  meet- 
ing of  the  two  great  leaders  in  the  religious  life  of 
man  was  disallowed  and  forbidden  in  the  congresses 
and  conventions  of  the  g^eat  spiritual  hierarchies  of 
the  spiritual  world  that  hold  their  sessions  in  the 
higher  spheres  of  spirit  life  and  preside  over  the  des- 
tinies of  the  various  churches,  and  determine  upon  the 
character  of  the  various  forces  that  shall  enter  into 
them.  The  formation  of  new  sects  to  meet  the  spirit- 
ual needs  of  a  progressive  humanity,  and  the  time 
when  they  shall  take  their  place  on  the  stage  of  time — 

8i 


MAN^S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

these  and  many  other  matters  that  concern  the  welfare 
of  all  the  churches — are  deliberated  over  and  deter- 
mined upon  by  these  great  ecclesiastical  bodies  in 
spirit  life.  Otherwise  the  spiritual  and  even  the  ma- 
terial concerns  of  the  churches,  both  in  the  spirit  world 
and  in  this  world  also,  would  become  a  chaos  and  a 
confusion  and  not  an  orderly  and  progressive  evolu- 
tion. 

It  was  probably  owing  to  this  fact  that  these  two 
very  great  men  were  never  permitted  to  meet  in  this 
life.  There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  the  mind  of 
Mr,  Wesley  was  already  a  good  deal  predisposed  to 
look  into  the  affairs  of  the  spirit  world  for  a  solution 
of  the  mystery  of  the  spirit  rappings  that  had  taken 
place  in  the  family  of  his  father,  Mr.  Samuel  Wesley, 
and  an  intimate  acquaintance  and  free  intercourse  be- 
tween the  two  great  minds  would  in  the  end  possibly 
have  resulted  in  the  adoption  by  Mr.  Wesley  of  some 
form  of  spiritualism,  so  that  secession  and  division 
would  have  taken  place  in  his  church,  and  two  or  more 
wrangling,  warring  sects  would  have  come  upon  the 
stage,  instead  of  the  one  great,  true  organism  that  has 
done  so  much  to  educate  and  instruct  its  own  people 
and  to  carry  light,  truth  and  salvation  to  nearly  every 
nation  and  people  under  the  whole  heavens. 

That  this  was  the  view  of  the  higher  intelligences, 
and  that  the  meeting  of  the  two  great  men  was  over- 
ruled by  them,  is  not  unlikely  to  say  the  least.  For 
take  it  all  in  all  we  are  of  the  belief  that  the  churches 
as  a  rule  will  not  be  advanced  very  far  into  the  spirit- 
ual sense  of  the  Word  by  the  angelic  wisdoms  of  the 
spiritual  world  until  the  physical  and  the  psychical 
sciences  have  made  greater  advancement — have  in 
deed  and  truth  met  and  kissed  each  other  after  their 
long  estrangement  and  separation. 

That  that  time  is  close  at  hand  the  wonderful  strides 
that  the  physical  and  the  metaphysiological  sciences 
have  made  in  recent  years  betoken  the  near  approach 
of  the  new  era.  The  trouble  with  Swedenborg's 
views  concerning  the  limitations  of  the  sphere  of  ef- 
ficient changes  in  the  life  of  the  spirit  man  in  spirit 

82 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

life,  grew  out  of  the  fact  that  when  he  became  a  seer 
of  spiritual  things  he  came  under  the  instruction  of 
spirit  teachers  who  in  this  life  had  never  enjoyed  the 
advantages  which  the  new  and  marvelous  light  of 
material  science  is  beginning  to  cast  upon  nearly 
every  question  of  a  psychical  character. 

Indeed,  it  is  in  wonderful  measure  illuminating,  in- 
structing and  uplifting  the  minds  and  the  hearts  of 
men  on  all  the  living  questions  of  the  time  in  more 
than  a  thousand  ways. 

We  are  swiftly  nearing  the  time  spoken  of  by  John 
in  Rev.  xviii.,  I,  24,  wherein  he  describes  the  old  order 
of  civilization  and  the  manner  of  its  ending,  especially 
in  the  21st  verse  of  that  chapter — an  absolutely  neces- 
sary and  indispensable  measure,  preparatory  to  the  in- 
troduction of  the  new  order  of  civilization — the  ''new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth."  The  new  house  can 
never  be  built  on  the  site  of  the  old  one,  until  the  old 
one  has  been  utterly  destroyed  and  taken  away.  It 
was  the  lack  of  this  spiritual  scientific  light,  even  as 
late  as  the  times  of  Swedenborg  and  which  his  prin- 
cipal teacher  in  spirit  life — St.  Augustine — had  less 
of  in  his  day  than  did  his  pupil — Swedenborg — that 
so  greatly  unfitted  the  great  seer  in  so  many  ways  to 
become  a  true  and  living  interpreter  of  the  ''spiritual 
sense  of  the  word"  as  he  claimed  to  be.  Hence  it  is 
that  many  of  his  expositions  of  the  Word  are  not  only 
false  but  absurdly  so. 

But  again  let  us  inquire  "What  are  the  hells  of 
spirit  Hfe?"  They  are  surely  not  places  of  torment 
where  the  great  Creative  Father  has  colonized  his 
great  family  of  children  in  everlasting  flames ! 

Of  what  conceivable  or  even  inconceivable  use  could 
such  a  place  or  places  be  to  either  themselves,  to  the 
rest  of  mankind  or  to  the  Creator  Himself  ? 

To  subject  a  being  who  has  been  created  of  so  low 
mental  and  moral  status,  as  we  have  shown  the  infant 
spiritual  man  to  be,  to  eternal  torture — who  in  his 
dense  ignorance  knows  and  can  know  almost  nothing 
of  the  innate  and  interior  laws  that  govern  himself 
and  his  fellow  men — would  present  the  Creator  as 

83 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

a.  Being  so  wholly  unwise,  unjust  and  cruel  as  to  be 
.incomprehensible  to  the  reason  and  understanding 
of  mankind  instead  of  the  loving  Father  of  all  his 
great  family  of  children  whom  Jesus  describes  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  And  here  let  us  inquire  why  it 
was  that  Jesus  in  some  of  his  rapt  moments  on  several 
occasions  denounced  the  future  of  the  sinner  in  some- 
what wrathful  terms.  He  was  addressing  men  who 
were  infants  in  their  knowledge  of  the  operations  of 
the  spiritual  laws  of  man's  life  in  either  world  and 
more  especially  in  the  other  world ;  and  as  he  was  well 
aware,  both  from  knowledge  and  experience,  that  it 
was  useless  to  attempt  to  make  them  comprehend  the 
real  situation  of  the  man  when  he  has  become  a  citi- 
zen of  the  spirit  world,  he  did  the  only  thing  that 
could  be  done  to  impress  the  minds  of  his  hearers  with 
the  nature  of  the  dangers  and  the  liabilities  he  will 
be  obliged  to  encounter  when  he  arrives  in  spirit  life, 
he  wrapped  the  whole  subject  up  in  symbols  and  meta- 
phor and  gave  it  to  the  people  in  that  form.  Like  the 
good,  wise,  earthly  parent,  whose  wayward  infant 
child  does  not  fully  understand  the  terrible  dangers  of 
playing  with  the  fire,  he  does  not  sit  down  and 
preach  to  him  a  long  discourse  on  the  dangers  of  fire, 
most  of  which  he  will  not  be  able  to  comprehend,  but 
he  will  be  perchance  obliged  to  address  the  child  with 
some  degree  of  asperity  and  sharpness,  "Keep  away 
from  the  iirer  and  even  punish  him  in  other  ways, 
too,  if  he  still  refuses  to  obey  his  first  command.  For 
all  laws  must  be  indorsed  with  proper  penalties  or 
they  are  not  laws  in  any  right  sense  of  the  term,  and 
hence  in  the  Word  most  of  the  laws  are  spoken  of 
as  "Commandments."  "He  spake  as  one  having  au- 
thority and  not  as  the  scribes."  He  was  addressing 
spiritual  infants  and  he  addressed  them  in  language 
that  they  could  comprehend.  Any  other  would  have 
been  an  idle  waste  of  words.  And  that  is  without  any 
doubt  the  reason  why  those  who  at  that  time  were  in- 
strumental in  formulating  the  credos  of  the  churches 
were  allowed,  possibly  prompted,  by  the  higher  powers 
to  still  farther  exaggerate  if  possible,  the  terrors  of 

84 


MAN'S  TLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

the  great  and  awful  mystery  of  the  condition  of  the 
lower  and  baser  classes  of  mankind  in  the  lowest 
estates  of  spirit  life. 

But  a  new  and  glorious  era  has  dawned  upon  affairs 
in  the  lowly  spheres  of  spirit  life  within  the  past  half 
century.  As  heretofore  stated,  this  is  the  time  referred 
to  in  Acts  3-21 — the  ''times  of  the  restitution  of  all 
things"  in  which  the  lower  spheres  of  the  spiritual 
world  have  become  a  vast  field  for  the  exercise  of  the 
benevolent  energies  of  the  human  soul,  and  myriads 
of  the  more  advanced  classes  of  the  spiritual  world 
are  daily  descending  into  its  lower  spheres ;  yea,  many 
of  them  penetrating  into  the  deepest  dens  and  prisons 
of  spirit  life,  bearing  with  them  light,  life,  love,  hope, 
joy,  hope  and  good  cheer  to  the  "lost"  and  abandoned 
ones  of  those  terrible  places,  vast  numbers  of  whom 
have  been  outcasts  from  the  loves,  affections  and  the 
sympathies  of  human  kind  for  long  ages !  "Verily, 
verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  the  time  cometh  and  now  is 
when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  Man, 
and  they  that  hear  shall  live." 

But  this  is  more  perfectly  true  of  the  ability  to 
reach  the  "dead"  of  both  this  life  and  spirit  life,  also 
in  this  the  second  or  spiritual  coming  of  Christ,  as  His 
descent  into  the  hades  of  spirit  life  proved  a  failure  to 
accomplish  anything  for  the  spiritually  dead  of  gospel 
times,  but  only  for  those  of  more  ancient  times. 

The  spiritually  "dead"  of  gospel  times  have  been 
obliged  to  remain  in  the  lower  spheres  for  these  nearly 
2,000  years — first,  because  they  are  utterly  repugnant 
to  and  unfit  for  society  in  the  higher  spheres;  second, 
it  is  best  for  them  to  remain  right  in  those  spheres 
where  they  entered  spirit  life  as  the  very  hells  them- 
selves, to  which  they  gravitated  on  their  entrance  into 
spirit  life;  are  the  best  society  and  contain  the  best 
educating  influences  the  spiritual  world  could  give 
them  at  that  time.  The  higher,  more  advanced  classes 
of  spirit  life  repelled  them  too  much  to  do  any- 
thing to  help  these  animal  men  in  the  lower  spheres. 
They  were  too  spiritually  aristocratic  to  be  of  any  use 
to  them.    An  intense  mutual  dislike  and  hatred  existed 

85 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

between  the  two  classes — the  one  to  give  and  the  other 
to  receive  instruction  or  sympathy  or  help  of  any  sort 
or  kind. 

A  careful  reading  of  Swedenborg^s  Heaven  and 
Hell  reveals  in  graphic  and  awful  colors  the  terrible 
antagonisms  and  intense  hatreds  that  have  existed 
between  them,  due  in  great  measure  to  this  proud  and 
aristocratic  feeling  exercised  toward  the  humbler 
classes  by  the  rich  and  great  of  both  worlds,  so  much 
so  that  it  is  very  much  as  Seer  Swedenborg  has  stated 
in  Heaven  and  HelU  N.  581 :  ''The  reason  that  tor- 
ments in  the  hells  are  permitted  by  the  Lord  is  because 
evils  cannot  otherwise  be  restrained  and  subdued. 

''The  only  means  of  restraining  and  subduing  them, 
thus  of  keeping  the  infernal  crew  in  bonds,  is  the  fear 
of  punishment.  There  is  no  other  means  given;  for 
without  the  fear  of  punishment  and  torment,  evil 
would  burst  forth  into  madness  as  a  kingdom  on  earth 
where  there  is  no  law  and  no  punishment !" 

Such  are  some  of  the  expressed  sentiments  of 
Swedenborg,  the  great  intellect  and  seer,  who  shared 
deeply  in  the  aristocratic  sentiments  of  the  upper 
classes  of  his  time — sentiments  that  naturally  and 
rightfully  grow  out  of  the  characteristic  differences 
that  the  Creator  hath  established  among  men,  and 
which  are  the  glory  of  the  divine  humanity  when  prop- 
erly exercised  and  understood,  as  it  makes  every  man 
and  woman  a  living  fountain  of  holy  loveSy  magnet- 
isms, affections,  which  are  foods  for  the  sustenance 
and  life  of  every  other  soul  about  him.  "He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me  as  the  Scripture  hath  said,  out  of  his 
belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  water." 

"This  is  that  bread  which  came  down  from  Heaven. 
He  that  eateth  of  this  bread  shall  live  forever." 
"Whoso  eateth  my  Hesh  (wisdom  magnetisms)  and 
drinketh  my  blood  (magnetic  loves)  hath  eternal  life." 
"As  the  living  Father  hath  sent  me  and  I  live  by  the 
Father:  so  he  that  eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live  by  me." 

It  is  these  divine  foods  that  Christly  souls  eat  of  one 
another  in  their  social,  spiritual  and  all  other  proper 
relations  that  exist  among  them,  that  makes  all  such 

86 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

intercourse  in  its  higher  forms  so  sustaining,  delight- 
ful and  glorious ! 

As  the  grape  yieldeth  its  life  blood  for  the  use 
and  sustenance  of  man  as  a  food  for  the  higher  senti- 
ments and  passions  of  mankind ;  as  bread  is  the  "staff 
of  life"  and  the  chief  food  of  the  various  bodily  or- 
gans especially,  so  Jesus,  at  that  "last  supper,"  with 
His  disciples,  symbolized  both  of  them  as  correspon- 
dential  with  those  social,  spiritual  and  other  personal 
foods  that  Christlike  men  and  women  can  and  do 
constantly  impart  to  each  other  in  all  the  sweet  and 
holy  and  living  relations  existing  among  them.  But 
this  is  not  all.  Sweet,  pure,  holy  men,  soon  after  their 
entrance  into  spirit  life,  enter  some  one  or  more  of  the 
vast  societies  that  exist  in  the  spiritual  heavens,  and 
there  these  divine  food  functions  become  vastly  more 
perfect  and  potent,  each  soul  not  only  imparting  the 
various  divine  magnetisms  of  his  being  to  all  others 
in  his  society,  but  also  receives  them  Irom  all  others. 
Nor  is  tlifis  all.  Every  society  in  spirit  life  is  a  divine 
unit,  and  as  such  exists  in  the  spiritual  heavens  as  an 
integral  function  for  the  whole  heavens  to  which  it  is 
related,  and  imparts  its  magnetic  and  other  precious 
divine  foods  in  accord  with  all  its  functional  relations 
to  its  own  heavens.  But  the  earth  itself  is  but  a  part 
of  spiritual  heavens  in  its  lower  forms  and  uses,  and 
all  its  people,  as  fast  as  they  become  sufficiently  ad- 
vanced mentally,  morally,  socially,  and  have  become 
fully  harmonized  with  more  or  less  of  its  glorious 
societies,  are  constantly  receiving  the  heavenly  mannas 
and  all  other  precious  and  divine  foods  that  are  for- 
ever outflowing  from  the  divine  centers  of  life  uni- 
versal, to  enrapture,  cheer,  nourish  and  sustain  all  life 
everywhere  throughout  the  living  boundaries  of  all 
created  and  uncreated  beings  from  monad  upward  to 
man,  and  from  man  to  the  Gods  themselves. 


87 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  MAN. 

Saith  Paul:  'There  is  a  natural  body,  and  there 
is  a  spiritual  body."  How  Paul  came  in  possession  of 
so  occult  an  ontological  fact,  in  an  age  and  country  so 
densely  ignorant  and  materialistic,  we  do  not  know, 
but  imagine  it  came  to  him  more  as  a  spiritually  in- 
spired truth  than  from  any  constant  rational  percep- 
tion of  so  important  a  spiritual  principle,  in  all  scien- 
tific and  logical  bearings  and  results. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  there  is  in  deed  and  truth  a  won- 
derful analogy  and  correspondence  between  the  two 
organisms.  As  the  mollusk  secretes  within  its  more 
interior  and  delicate  organs  the  material  of  which  its 
external  shell  or  house  is  formed,  and  which,  with  an 
art  divinely  cunning,  it  weaves  about  itself;  as  the 
tree  clothes  itself  roundabout  with  the  rough  covering 
of  bark,  to  protect  the  more  delicate  sap  vessels  of  the 
interior ;  so,  in  like  manner,  doth  that  divinest  artificer, 
the  spiritual  man,  sit  back  behind  the  so-called  "visi- 
ble" and  fabricate  that  really  wonderful  house  we 
term  "natural  body,"  which,  though  of  apparently 
coarser  texture  and  mold  than  is  the  spiritual  body, 
it  is  designed  to  nourish  and  protect,  is,  nevertheless, 
in  shape  like  unto  it,  and  in  itself  is  a  marvel  of  de- 
sign and  beauty,  when  perfected;  and  is  well  adapted, 
in  all  respects,  to  minister  to  the  needs  of  the  living 
artist  that  sits  within,  and  weaves  it  in  the  loom  of 
time.  In  real  truth,  this  terrestrial  house,  in  which 
man  temporarily  resides,  fulfills  the  still  more  im- 
portant function  of  a  laboratory  or  stomach,  in  which 
he  digests  and  elaborates  the  forces  of  this  terrestrial 
plane  of  being,  as  the  basic  elements  of  the  spiritual 
and  spiritual-celestial  body. 

Matter  is  only  the  name  of  one  of  these  basic  forces 
that  sustain  the  universe  of  being,  and  the  grossness  of 
it  consists  mainly  in  the  grossness  of  our  ideas  regard- 
ing it.  It  externalizes  itself,  or,  more  strictly  speak- 
ing, the  higher  forces  externalize  themselves  through 

88 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

matter  in  three  dimensions;  but  the  higher  forces 
operate  within,  in  a  "fourth  dimension"  (of  Prof. 
Zolhier),  as  the  shaft  works  in  the  slot,  the  hand  in 
the  glove. 

It  is  by  and  through  this  fourth  dimension  that 
the  celestial-spiritual  man,  after  one  of  his  long 
flights  through  the  eternities  and  infinities  of  time  and 
space,  descends  ("falls")  into  terrestrial  states  and 
forces — even  descends  into  the  hells — to  rebuild,  re- 
new, refresh,  reincarnate  and  more  fully  eternize  his 
spiritual-celestial  body. 

As  the  external  body  has  parts,  organs,  functions, 
so  has  the  spiritual  body — and  in  the  true  spiritual- 
celestial  man  and  woman,  as  distinguished  from  the 
lower  or  animal  man,  which  is  not  in  itself  subject  to 
the  laws  of  spiritual  good  or  God,  until  similiated  and 
harmonized  with  and  by  the  higher  or  spiritual  man, 
it  becomes  of  the  highest  order  both  in  substance  and 
in  form,  being  wrought  out  from  the  highest,  holiest 
loves,  affections,  truths,  principles  of  the  spiritual 
worlds. 

"The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy,"  for  the 
reason  that  his  body  is  developed  out  of  the  animal 
kingdom  below  him,  and  on  the  terrestrial  plane  of 
being,  and  partly  out  of  the  mundane  forces,  by  the 
creative  intelligences;  and  it  is  designed  to  serve  the 
purpose  of  a  ready  made  house  to  live  in;  a  ready 
made  garment  to  clothe  himself  withal;  and  a  ready 
made  laboratory  to  aid  him  in  the  easy  elaboration 
of  those  elemental  forces  with  which  he  is  to  reclothe, 
rebuild  and  refurnish  his  more  permanent  home, — the 
more  divine,  precious  and  holy,  eternal,  spiritual-celes- 
tial man — the  Man-God. 

Man  as  to  his  foods  is  an  omnivorous  being.  He  is 
not  only  a  plant  eater  but  an  eater  of  animals,  in  some 
phases  of  his  manifold  being.  Both  the  plant  and  the 
animal  have  previously  passed  the  elemental  forces 
and  foods  of  the  material  world  through  the  refining 
and  reconstructive  processes  of  their  own  digestive 
organs,  thereby  raising  these  elementary  forces  to  a 

89 


MAN*S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

higher  organic  level  before  being  used  by  the  animal 
man. 

Now,  he  lives  upon  the  higher  spiritual-social  and 
spiritual-celestial  forms,  foods  and  forces  in  a  some- 
what similar  manner.  Every  soul  with  whom  he  is 
brought  into  touch  in  the  divine  harmonies  in  spiritual- 
social  life,  is  engaged  in  the  labor  of  eating,  digesting, 
elaborating  spiritual  truths,  foods,  forces,  in  the 
laboratory  of  his  own  interior,  spiritual  being,  and 
elevating  these  spiritual  foods  to  still  higher  food 
levels.  Yea,  all  true  spiritual  men  eat  one  another — 
impart  to  each  other  their  spiritual  blood  (loves)  and 
spiritual  flesh  (wisdom)  to  nourish,  upbuild  and  sus- 
tain each  other. 

It  is  by  these  divine  offices  of  imparting  each  to  the 
other  and  to  all,  in  a  degree,  these  divine,  social- 
spiritual  foods,  by  ways,  words  and  works  of  love  and 
use,  and  by  eating  one  another  mutually  and  function- 
ally, that  the  social,  spiritual-celestial  man  is  made 
to  otherise  himself — to  build  himself  into  his  entire 
social  environment  of  souls  and  into  the  higher  soci- 
eties of  the  spiritual  and  celestial  universes  of  God. 

.  .  .  "That  they  all  may  be  one:  as  thou.  Father, 
art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one 
in  us," — thus  not  only  making  the  terrestro-social 
man  one  in  spiritual  life  with  his  fellows  but  one 
and  at-one  with  the  higher  celestial  men  and  women 
of  the  spiritual  worlds,  for  in  very  truth,  when  prop- 
erly discerned,  this  is  the  great  "Atonement," — the 
Son  with  the  Father, — ^the  brotherhood  of  man  with 
the  Fatherhood  of  God. 


THE  HIGHER   CONSCIOUSNESS. 

"Consciousness,"  as  one  has  well  said,  "is  the  visi- 
ble scene  of  the  soul."  It  is  the  parliament  of  mind. 
In  that  vast  theater  of  mind,  the  higher  forms  of 
spiritual  man,  especially,  view  the  whole  scene  of  con- 

90 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

flict  in  this  human  life  of  ours — this  "visible  scene  of 
man" ;  and,  by  and  through  its  parallaxes,  its  conflicts 
and  its  stars,  shares  in  these  conflicts  and  makes  them 
his  own.  Here  in  this  parliament  of  the  soul,  the  con- 
flicting forces  in  the  virtuous  soul  of  Hercules  fought 
out  the  battle  'twixt  virtue  and  pleasure  or  vice. 

But  consciousness  and  its   contents  are  dual — the 
higher  consciousness  and   its   forms,   and  the   lower 
consciousness    and    its    forms.      The    former    in    its 
higher  planes  and  aspects  belong  to  the  celestial-spirit- 
ual  man;   and  its  contents  are  the   loves,   wisdoms, 
benevolences,  affections  and  sympathies  of  the  celestial 
man.     The  latter  or  the  inferior  consciousness  is  one 
that  we  possess  in  common  with  the  animal  world; 
and   its   contents   are   the   lower  knowledges   of   the 
animal  world,  together  with  all  its  array  of  animal 
propensities,  passions,  appetites,  desires,  impulses,  etc. 
The   higher   or   "new   consciousness," — termed   the 
"new  man,"  "the  second  man,"  the  "Lord  from  the 
heavens" — is    the    intelligent,    rational    consciousness 
that  properly  belongs   only  to  that  higher  plane  of 
existence;  the  higher,  more  advanced  celestial-spirit- 
ual man,  who  is  at  once  Creator  and  Lord  of  the 
heavens  and  the  earths.     This  newer  and  higher  con- 
sciousness is  fully  shared  only  by  man  in  his  higher 
and  more  advanced  and  potential  degrees  and  states ; 
and,  also,  by  man  in  his  pure  celestial  states,  ere  he 
descends  to  terrestrial  planes  to  reincarnate  with  the 
animal  man,  or  "first  man,"   as  it  is  termed  in  the 
Word. 

Both  bee  and  man  work  with  marvelous  intelli- 
gence ;  but  while  the  intelligence  of  the  bee  stops  with 
the  conclusion  of  his  work,  the  intelligence  of  the  man 
may  go  a  step  farther,  and  give  a  reason  for  his  work ; 
why,  how,  upon  what  principles,  for  what  purpose  or 
purposes,  etc.,  it  was  accomplished.  In  other  words, 
he  is  endowed  with  a  new  and  vastly  higher  factor  in 
the  realm  of  conscious  intelligence;  one  that  does  not 
exist,  so  far  as  known,  in  the  bee,  nor  to  any  very 
high  degree  in  the  lower  forms  of  mankind. 

In  the  play  of  the  personal  forces  of  the  individual 

91 


■MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

between  the  higher  and  lower  planes  of  the  conscious- 
ness lies  one  of  the  greatest  sources  of  error  in  esti- 
mating the  validity  and  justness  of  our  own  motives 
and  intentions  and  those  of  others.  I  discovered  early 
in  life  that  philosophy  had  to  make  a  very  important 
distinction  between  the  intentions,  or  the  conscious 
intelligent  purposes  of  the  man;  those  motives  which 
he  has  fully  weighed,  measured  and  approved  ration- 
ally, as  beneficial  to  himself  and  his  ''neighbor,"  and 
those  motives,  impulses,  passions,  etc.,  which  being 
of  the  animal  order  of  existence,  and  lying  below  the 
higher  or  spiritual  and  rational  plane,  and  upon  the 
lower,  less  visible,  or  wholly  invisible  planes  of  being, 
escape  the  notice  of  the  man,  for  the  simple  reason  he 
has  not  been  sufficiently  reincarnated,  and,  hence,  has 
not  yet  had  time  to  round  up  his  being  to  that  higher 
plane  where  "his  deeds  are  made  manifest"  to  his 
higher  consciousness. 

So  true  is  this,  that  one  whose  soul  hath  been  led 
up  by  the  evolutions  of  past  and  present  incarnations 
on  to  that  higher  plane  of  consciousness,  sees  in  all 
the  acts  and  actors  of  time  and  world  only  a  reflex 
of  himself;  and  every  such  deed  as  but  the  natural 
reflex  of  forces  he  sees  within  him;  each  actor  but 
as  an  alter  ego  or  other  self,  occupying  whose  place 
in  the  sphere  he  himself  would  have  enacted  a  similar 
role.  In  truth,  he  will  often  exclaim  with  the  philoso- 
pher, who  on  hearing  of  some  unusual  deed  said, 
"Why,  I  was  there,  too ;"  or  with  Bishop  Newton  who, 
on  seeing  a  malefactor  on  his  way  to  Tyburn,  said 
"But  for  the  grace  of  God,  there  goes  John  Newton ;" 
for  the  vaticinal  consciousness  of  the  divine,  celestial 
man  spans  the  entire  universe  of  life;  in  it  he  sees 
the  operation  of  all  its  most  visible  and  invisible  forces 
and  their  laws;  and  by  and  through  them  learns  "to 
justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

Still  all  must  work,  each  in  his  own  way,  as  he 
sees  the  light  and  the  work ;  each  must  enact  his  part 
in  his  own  way  on  the  great  amphitheater  of  time  and 
man.  And  all  are  needed  there,  since  each  and  all  the 
various  human  terrestrial,  as  well  as  spiritual,  forces 

92 


•  MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

limit,  temper  and  restrain  each  other,  while  the  higher 
lead. 

Said  Madame  De  Stael,  "Russia  is  an  absolute  des- 
potism, tempered  by  assassination/' 

Yea,  verily,  the  Nihilist,  even  though  his  theory  of 
government  be  a  worthless  and  senseless  caricature 
of  the  real  and  the  true,  holds  up  the  even  scales  of 
justice  before  the  eyes  of  the  Czar,  follows  him  into  the 
secret  chambers  of  the  palace  and  of  the  soul,  and 
makes  him  tremble  in  the  presence  of  his  own  vast 
responsibilities  and  duties  to  his  people  and  to  man- 
kind. 

It  is  in  truth  this  higher  rational,  divine  conscious- 
ness that  spans  the  worlds;  yea,  the  very  universes  of 
being,  and  enspheres  terrestrial  man  at  last  into  a 
conscious,  living,  eternal  brotherhood;  one  among  the 
living  brotherhoods  of  the  living  worlds,  under  the 
living  fatherhood  of  the  living  God. 


LIVE  IN  THE  SPIRIT. 

"Nothing  in  the  world  is  single; 

All  things  by  a  law  Divine 
In  one  another's  being  mingle." 

It  is  the  law  and  condition  of  the  universe  itself 
which  is  provided,  as  is  the  human  system,  with  a 
most  marvelous  nerve  system  that  unites  soul  with 
soul,  suns  with  suns,  and  their  worlds,  universes  with 
universes,  and  all  things  with  God — rt:he  Supreme 
Being. 

It  IS  through  this  sublime  and  beautiful  nerve  sys- 
tem, that  unites  the  one  and  the  all,  that  souls  derive 
their  spiritual  nutrition  from  other  similar  organic 
beings  around  and  abbve  them — a  function  of  the 
mind  symbolized  by  the  Christ  in  that  marvelous  ex- 
pression :  "Except  ye  eat  of  the  flesh  of  the  son  of  man, 

93 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you."  An  ex- 
pression literally  true,  for  in  this  sense  we  are  all 
more  or  less  cannibals  and  mutually  eat  and  drink 
of  each  other. 

Yea,  all  things  of  this  glorious  universe  of  the  liv_- 
ing  God  throb,  vibrate,  thrill  and  are  nourished  and 
sustained  from  the  tides  that  forever  flow  from  high 
to  low,  from  low  to  high,  through  the  veins,  nerves 
and  arteries  of  universal  life. 

This  society  already  so  formed,  and  to  form,  let 
me  hope,  in  the  future,  for  the  protection  and  up- 
building of  all,  will  supply  the  angelic  societies  of 
spirit  life  with  those  terrestrial-spiritual,  or  basic, 
forces,  which,  combined  with  those  coming  from  the 
highest  spheres  of  spirit  life,  shall  enable  them  to 
create  a  spiritual  atmosphere  that  shall  environ  its 
members,  and  that  shall  act  in  like  manner  as  does  the 
terrestrial  atmosphere — as  a  buffer  against  the 
meteoric  missies  that  daily  bombard  the  planet  by 
billions,  and  would  be  a  source  of  perpetual  menace 
to  its  inhabitants  were  they  not  most  of  them  speedily 
consumed  upon  entering  it.  In  like  way  shall  these 
dark  meteoric  spiritual  bodies  be,  most  of  them,  con- 
sumed as  to  their  lusts  and  hatreds  and  ignorance  by 
entering  the  pure  spiritualized  atmosphere  that  shall 
invest  the  persons  of  all  who  shall  become  practical 
members  of  this  divine  society  which  is  speedily  des- 
tined to  encircle  the  world  in  its  benign  enfoldments. 

Such  a  society,  when  it  has  been  perfected,  by  the 
spiritual  forces  of  the  higher  life  of  man  immortal, 
will  become  a  potent  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
angels  for  the  divine  healing — mental,  material,  spirit- 
ual— for  all  who  are  connected  therewith,  and  who 
may  feel  the  need  of  such  harmonization  and  bal- 
ancing up  of  their  physical  and  psychical  powers ;  and 
few  do  not.  It  will  create  a  vast  fund  of  spiritual 
forces  upon  which  all  its  members  may  rely  for  their 
healing,  as  well  as  development  and  protection.  For 
these  divine  potencies  of  spiritual  life  go  hand  in 
hand. 

Beloved  friends,  let  us  unite  to  set  a  ball  in  motion 

94 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

that,  like  the  snowball  on  the  mountain  side,  shall 
speedily  sweep  from  its  pathway  every  obstacle  that  is 
hostile  to  the  progressive  life  of  man. 

Let  us  live  in  the  spirit,  in  mutual  good  will,  good 
wishes,  good  aspirations,  inspirations  and  invocations 
in  behalf  of  each  other  and  of  all.  It  will  do  more 
toward  developing  our  mutual  spiritual  powers ;  to  aid 
the  sick  ones  in  spirit  life,  that  come  to  us  for  light, 
sympathy  and  help;  and  to  protect  each  and  all  from 
the  assaults  of  evil  and  deceiving  spirits,  than  can 
be  accomplished  in  any  other  way. 


CONCERNING     INFESTATIONS     AND    THE 
CASTING  OUT  OF  EVIL  SPIRITS. 

"If  I  by  Beelzebub  cast  out  devils,  by  whom  do 
your  children  cast  them  out?" — Luke  xi.,  19. 

"He  cast  out  spirits  with  his  word." — Matt,  viii.,  16. 

"And  the  seventy  returned  again  with  joy,  saying. 
Lord  even  the  devils  are  subject  unto  us  through  thy 
word." — Luke  x.,  17. 

"And  his  name  went  throughout  all  Syria :  and  they 
brought  unto  him  all  sick  that  were  taken  with  divers 
diseases  and  torments,  and  those  that  were  possessed 
with  devils,  and  those  which  were  lunatics,  and  he 
healed  them."    Matt,  iv.,  24. 

"And  he  ordained  twelve  that  they  should  be  with 
him  and  that  he  might  send  them  forth  and  to  have 
power  to  heal  the  sick  and  to  cast  out  devils." — Luke 
ix.,  I. 

"And  he  healed  many  that  were  sick  of  divers  dis- 
eases, and  cast  out  many  devils,  and  suffered  not  the 
devils  to  speak,  for  they  knew  him." — Mark  i.,  34. 

"Then  was  brought  unto  him  one  possessed  with  a 
devil,  blind  and  dumb:  and  he  healed  him  insomuch 

95 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

that  the  blind  and  dumb  both  spake  and  saw." — Matt, 
xii.,  22. 

''If  any  man  believe  in  me,  the  works  that  I  do  shall 
he  do  also,  and  greater  works  shall  he  do  because  I 
go  to  the  Father." 

''And  these  signs  shall  follow  them  that  believe:  In 
my  name  shall  they  cast  out  devils:  they  shall  speak 
with  new  tongues  *****  ^^gy  shall  lay  hands 
upon  the  sick  and  they  shall  recover.'* — Mark  xvi.,  17, 
18. 

"And  he  came  down  with  them  and  stood  in  the 
plain  and  in  the  company  of  his  disciples,  and  a  great 
multitude  of  people  *  *  *  came  to  be  healed  of  their 
diseases:  and  they  that  were  vexed  with  unclean 
spirits:  and  they  were  healed.  And  the  whole  multi- 
tude sought  to  touch  him:  for  there  went  virtue  out 
of  him,  and  healed  them  all.'* 

"And  one  of  the  multitude  answered  him  and  said. 
Master,  I  have  brought  unto  thee  my  son,  who  hath 
a  dumb  spirit. 

"And  wheresoever  he  taketh  him  he  teareth  him: 
and  he  foameth  and  gnasheth  with  his  teeth  and  pineth 
away:  and  I  spake  to  thy  disciples  that  they  should 
cast  him  out :  and  they  could  not.  He  answereth  him 
and  saith,  Oh,  faithless  generation,  how  long  shall  I 
be  with  you:  how  long  shall  I  suffer  you?  Bring 
him  unto  me.  And  they  brought  him:  and  when  he 
saw  him,  straightway  the  spirit  tare  him,  and  he  fell 
on  the  ground  and  wallowed,  foaming.  And  he  asked 
the  father:  how  long  is  it  ago  since  this  came  unto 
him,  and  he  said  of  a  child,  *  *  *  When  Jesus  saw 
that  the  people  came  running  together  he  rebuked  the 
FOUL  SPIRIT,,  saying  unto  him,  thou  deaf  and  dumb 
spirit,  I  charge  thee  come  out  of  him  and  enter  no  more 
into  him.  And  the  spirit  cried  and  rent  him  sore,  and 
came  out  of  him,  and  he  was  as  one  dead,  so  that  many 
said:  he  is  dead.  But  Jesus  took  him  by  the  hand 
and  lifted  him  up  and  he  arose." — Mark  ix.,  14. 

"Now  John,  when  he  heard  in  prison  the  works  of 
Christ,  he  sent  two  of  his  disciples,  and  said  unto 
him,  Art  thou  he  that  should  come,  or  should  we  look 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

for  another?  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Go 
and  show  John  those  things  that  ye  do  hear  and  see. 
The  bhnd  receive  their  sight,  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers 
are  cleansed,  the  dead  are  raised  up,  the  deaf  hear  and 
the  poor  have  the  Gospel  preached  to  them." 

The  above  is  the  testimony  of  Jesus  to  John  in  re- 
gard to  his  reasons  for  doing  the  manifold  and  mighty 
works  which  he  did  among  the  people:  to  establish 
the  truth  of  his  mission  as  the  true  Messiah,  long 
promised  to  the  people  of  the  Jews,  and  through 
them  a  light  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  We  have 
copied  thus  copiously  from  the  text  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament as  we  desired  to  place  at  once  before  the  mind 
of  the  reader  those  great  works  alleged  to  have  been 
wrought  by  the  master  in  attestation  of  his  mission  to 
mankind  as  the  latest  and  the  greatest  of  the  Avatars 
(or  "From-the-Fathers")  that  have  incarnated  to 
teach  and  to  save  men. 

But  the  chief  question  I  desire  to  raise  in  this  con- 
nection relates  to  His  mission  as  a  healer — one  en- 
dowed with  great  power  to  heal  the  diseases  of  man- 
kind, and  also  to  impart  to  others  a  like  gift  of  heal- 
ing. 

One  would  judge  from  the  way  the  church  has 
turned  its  back  upon  this  class  of  physicians,  and  have 
steadfastly  ignored  the  subject  as  a  body  of  teachers 
and  ministers,  that  the  entire  church  has  wholly  put 
aside  as  void  and  of  no  binding  influence  or  obliga- 
tion upon  it  the  whole  doctrine  of  Jesus  concerning 
the  healing  of  the  sick,  the  casting  out  of  devils  and 
other  evil  spirits,  or  that  these  persons  in  the  other 
life  can  and  do  infest  human  beings  that  are  resident 
in  the  flesh,  not  only  with  their  diseases,  but  also  with 
themselves,  and  may  and  do  inflict  great  and  serious 
injury  upon  them  in  this  way.  Yes,  did  Jesus  and  His 
disciples  in  truth  cast  out  demons  and  evil  spirits,  or 
were  they  "spooks"  or  imaginary  beings  that  existed 
in  nothing  save  in  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  fears 
of  foolish  people?  Could  Jesus  himself  have  been 
mistaken  ?  Is  it  possible  that  he  did  not  know  whereof 
he  spake  so  positively,  and  that  what  he  took  for  an 

97 


mAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

infestation  from  some  invisible  evil  spirit  or  man  was 
(and  is)  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  deranged  con- 
dition of  some  portion  or  the  whole  of  the  material 
organism  of  the  sick  man  himself,  and  that  the  idea 
of  spiritual  invisible  beings  having  anything  to  do 
with  it?  "Why,  that,"  says  science — pseudo-science — 
is  nothing  less  than  a  silly  superstition  that  has  no 
existence  except  in  the  disordered  brain  of  some 
lunatic !" 

And  yet,  say  what  we  may,  think  what  we  like,  con- 
cerning this  remarkable  subject,  Jesus  was  perfectly 
right,  and  His  disciples,  when  they  healed  the  sick, 
many  of  whom  were  made  sick  in  this  manner  by  the 
presence  of  some  sick  spirit  that  has  invaded  and  is 
infesting  the  person  of  the  sick  one. 

Yes,  it  is  a  great,  a  weighty  and  an  important 
truth  that  such  a  state  of  things  exists  on  the  border 
line  of  the  two  worlds  and  will  continue  to  exist  there 
until  science,  genuine,  not  false  science,  shall  take  up 
the  subject,  investigate  it  thoroughly,  and  apply  the 
proper  remedies.  Yes,  the  man  Christ  Jesus  not  only 
has  given  the  correct  diagnosis,  but  in  His  treatment 
of  the  sick  He  gave  the  appropriate  remedy — His  own 
personal  loves  and  magnetisms.  Let  bigots  and  charla- 
tans say  what  they  may  to  the  contrary,  notwith- 
standing. 

Yes,  true  science  will  ere  long  take  up  this  important 
question,  not  as  heretofore,  with  a  sneer  upon  its  lips 
to  cover  up  its  own  dense  ignorance  upon  the  subject, 
but  with  an  honest  determination  to  get  at  the  bottom 
facts.  With  a  proper  knowledge  of  this  great  and 
vitally  important  feature  in  the  occult  life  of  man, 
and  the  application  of  the  proper  remedies,  our  insane 
hospitals  would  become  empty  in  no  very  great  length 
of  time.  But  they  never  can  so  long  as  medical 
bigotry  presides  over  the  legislation  of  mankind. 

Yes,  among  the  words  and  the  works  that  the  be- 
loved teacher  gave  to  men,  none  are  more  weighty 
or  of  greater  importance  to  human  welfare  than  are 
those  which  relate  to  the  sick  of  spirit  life  and  their 

98 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

relation  to  many  of  the  diseases  of  this  Ufe,  let  ignor- 
ance and  bigotry  sneer  as  it  may.    Yes, — 

"Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again 
The   eternal  years   of  God  are  hers." 

And  those  who  imagine  that  Christ  taught  as  He 
did  in  regard  to  these  matters  because  he  was  ignor- 
ant of  the  real  facts,  do  but  stultify  this  greatest  of 
all  the  teachers  that  ever  came  down  from  the  spiritual 
heavens  to  instruct  mankind. 

*T  am  come  a  light  into  the  world  that  whosoever 
believeth  on  me  should  not  abide  in  darkness,  and  if 
any  man  hear  my  words  and  believe  not  I  judge  him 
not:  for  I  came  not  to  judge  the  world,  but  to  save 
the  world." — Jno.  xii.,  46. 

*'My  doctrine  is  not  mine,  but  his  that  sent  me," 
What  sublime  and  glorious  testimony!  *T  am  not 
come  of  myself,  but  He  that  sent  me  is  true  whom  ye 
know  not :  But  I  know  him :  for  I  am  from  him  and 
He  hath  sent  me." — Jno.  vii.,  28. 

Yes,  the  greatest  and  the  most  vitally  important  of 
those  doctrines  that  concern  the  life  and  the  health  of 
mankind  so  far  as  his  bodily  conditions  are  affected 
by  occult  forces  and  influences  from  decarnate  spirits, 
are  those  taught  by  the  Master  when  he  was  living  in 
the  flesh. 

If  any  man  will  but  cast  aside  his  theological  preju- 
dices for  a  time  and  will  carefully  look  into  the  facts, 
he  need  not  lack  for  examples  that  will  leave  no  doubt 
in  his  mind  that  Jesus  told  the  exact  truth  concerning 
all  these  matters,  and  gave  the  true  causes  of  them. 

Robert  G.  IngersoU  once  expressed  his  regret  that 
**he  did  not  have  the  making  of  things,  otherwise  he 
would  have  made  health  catching  instead  of  disease." 
But  that  was  one  of  Robert's  mistakes.  Health  is 
catching,  and  vastly  more  so  than  disease,  otherwise 
the  whole  race  of  mankind  would  have  perished  long 
ago. 

It  is  often  said  of  Americans  that  they  are  a  race  of 
''health  hunters,"  and  it  is  indeed  quite  true.  But  it  is 
due  in  great  degree  to  the  fact  that  they  are  more 

99 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

advanced  in  many  ways  than  the  balance  of  humanity, 
and  hence  have  become  more  sensitive  to  the  ills  that 
flesh  is  heir  to. 

Now,  this  health-hunting  business  is  not  confined 
only  to  this  life,  but  extends  also  to  the  next  one. 
Now,  this  pursuit  of  health  is  the  chief  reason  why 
human  beings  are  "infested"  by  so  many  of  the  deni- 
zens of  the  spiritual  world.  They  are  the  sick  of  the 
spiritual  world,  and  many  of  them  are  like  the  people 
of  this  world — looking  for  health  which  is  just  as  dear 
to  them  as  it  is  to  ourselves. 

They  come  to  mortals  in  the  flesh  to  obtain  their 
magnetisms  and  for  the  same  reason  that  the  sick 
man  of  this  world  applies  to  the  healer  for  his  mag- 
netisms, which  are  more  healthful  and  health-inspiring 
than  his  own.  Some  of  the  infesting  spirits,  it  is  true, 
come  for  other  reasons,  sometimes  for  revenge. 

Such  persons  are  evil  spirits  and  infest  human  be- 
ings for  evil  purposes.  But  the  greater  portion  of 
them  are  the  morally,  mentally  and  spiritually  sick 
people  of  the  spiritual  world,  who  come  to  us  mortals 
for  help — to  get  rid  of  their  diseased  magnetisms — 
their  impure  and  diseased  blood,  and  to  take  into 
themselves  the  purer  and  more  healthful  blood  of  those 
who  are  morally  and  mentally  more  pure  and  healthy. 

Blood  in  the  animal  body  corresponds  to  love  in  the 
spiritual  body,  for  love  is  the  blood  of  the  spiritual 
man,  and  hence  the  great  truth  and  beauty  of  that 
statement  of  the  Master:  "He  that  eateth  my  flesh 
(wisdom)  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal 
life.  *  *  *  For  my  flesh  is  meat  indeed  and  my  blood 
is  drink  indeed."  It  is  this  love  that  saves— this  heav- 
enly bread,  this  purer,  sweeter,  holier  love,  or  spiritual 
blood  and  bread,  "that  cometh  down  from  heaven"  and 
its  higher  societies  of  divine  men  and  women. 

For  in  truth  this  healing  blood  (and  bread)  doth 
not  belong  to  Christ  alone,  but  to  all  Christ-men  and 
women,  for  Jesus  spoke  these  words  as  a  representative 
man  of  the  higher  orders  of  men  and  women  of  our 
world,  and  as  their  spiritual  head. 

Yes,  it  isi  this  need  of  help  from  the  terrestro- 

JOQ 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

spiritual  forces  of  human  life,  and  which  they  can  find 
nowhere  else,  that  brings  so  many  of  the  spirit  sick 
to  people  in  the  flesh  to  find  those  whom  they  may 
control  and  in  whom  they  may  find  these  forces  for  the 
palliation  or  the  cure  of  the  various  evils  from  which 
they  suffer.  But  the  help  they  may  obtain  in  this 
way  is  only  very  partial,  unless  aided  by  science  and 
the  co-operation  of  angels,  so  that  hospitals  have  in 
recent  years  been  established  to  assist  in  their  treat- 
ment. Many  of  these  spirit  sick  ones  are  evil  minded, 
and  seek  to  find  such  mortals  as  they  can  personally 
control,  and  being  persons  of  very  reckless  and  inhar- 
monious character,  they  invade  the  persons  of  such 
weak-willed  people  as  they  can  control — actually  enter 
into  and  take  "possession"  of  their  persons.  Such 
persons  are  said  to  be  "possessed,'*  and  such  they  are ; 
both  are  insane,  but  the  one  that  is  in  earth  life  is 
in  the  worst  condition  of  the  twain.  Many  of  these 
spirits  are  malignant,  and  such  Jesus  characterized 
as  devils,  or  do-evils,  for  such  they  are  when  they  come 
to  mortals  with  evil  intent,  as  they  impart  their  own 
ills  to  them  in  exaggerated  form. 

That  spirits  impart  their  diseased  conditions  to  per- 
sons in  the  flesh,  consult  Swedenborg  in  his  Heaven 
and  Hell. 

It  is  only  within  half  of  a  century  that  hospitals  of 
one  and  another  kind  began  to-  be  formed  for  the 
treatment  of  the  sick  of  spirit  life,  and  vast  numbers 
of  them  since  then  have  been  treated  for  the  ills  they 
suffered   from  while  living  in  the  flesh. 

The  means  and  the  methods  so  employed  by  the 
angels  resemble  much  those  made  use  of  by  the 
"Salvation  Army"  people,  with  the  exception  that  those 
employed  by  the  angels  are  vastly  more  extended, 
embrace  a  vaster  number  of  subjects  and  are  more 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  needs  and  requirements  of 
spiritual  beings  than  are  those  of  that  noble  body  of 
self  consecrated  men  and  women  that  are  included  in 
the  Salvation  Army.  Untold  thousands  of  the  great, 
the  wise  and  the  good  of  the  very  highest  spheres  of 
spirit  life  have  become  missionaries,  many  of  them 

lOI 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

descending  into  the  lowest  spheres  of  spirit  life  and 
mingling  freely  with  the  lowest  and  the  humblest 
citizens,  many  of  them  such  as  in  this  life  were  re- 
garded as  among  the  basest  of  mankind,  and  carry 
with  them  life  and  light  and  love  and  hope  and  music, 
and  all  things  lovely  and  beautiful  and  cheering  and 
inspiring  to  the  heart  of  man. 

The  lower  spheres  of  spirit  life,  with  their  untold 
billions  of  people,  vast  numbers  of  whom  have  lived 
in  them  these  thousands  of  years  past,  have  become  a 
vast  theatre  for  missionary  enterprise,  and  millions 
are  engaged  in  the  glorious  work. 

For  in  truth,  in  the  spirit  world,  and  more  truly  than 
in  this  world,  for  these  are  the  "times  of  the  restitu- 
tion of  all  things,"  when  the  higher  and  more  ad- 
vanced classes  of  mankind,  who  in  this  life  tyrannized 
over  and  oppressed  their  brethren,  and  put  burdens 
upon  them  intolerable  to  be  borne,  and  practically 
deprived  them  of  their  immortal  birthright  to  life, 
liberty  and  happiness,  are  now  given  the  opportunity 
to  "lay  judgment  to  the  line  and  righteousness  to  the 
plummet,"  and  thousands  of  these  are  descend- 
ing into  the  lower  spheres  to  look  up  these  humble 
spiritual  wards  and  brothers  of  theirs  whom  they 
have  neglected  for  so  long,  and  are  bringing  them  out 
of  the  dark  "valley  of  the  shadow  of  death"  and  into 
God*s  blessed  and  eternal  sunlight  of  joy  and  peace. 
The  time  is  now  nearly  at  an  end  when  the  rich  and 
the  powerful  can  spend  the  earnings  of  the  poor  in 
riotous  living,  depriving  them  of  the  means  to  make 
life  a  joy  and  a  proper  preparation  and  stepping  stone 
to  the  order,  the  system  and  the  sublime  glories  and 
splendors  of  the  life  eternal. 

Yes,  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  important  truths 
that  Jesus  has  imparted  to  mankind  is  the  knowledge 
of  the  fact  that  mankind  in  the  flesh  may  be,  and 
most  of  them  are,  influenced  by  decarnated  spirits, 
both  good  and  bad,  and  according  to  the  character  of 
the  returning  spirit  will  be  the  influence  that  he  will 
exert  upon  the  person  or  persons  living  in  the  form, 
whether  it  shall  be  of  a  healthful  or  an  infestational 

102 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

character.  It  is  by  virtue  of  this  marvelous  relation 
existing  among  and  between  human  beings  living  in 
the  material  form  and  out  of  it  that  many  persons  in 
this  world  are  enabled  to  accomplish  great  good  by 
faith  and  prayer  and  the  intervention  of  angels. 
Let  us  take  for  example  the  case  of  Dr.  Barnardo  and 
George  Muller,  of  London,  England,  who  have,  by 
the  exercise  of  prayer  and  faith,  been  able  to  rear, 
educate  and  maintain  more  than  60,000  orphan  chil- 
dren. Really  and  truly  the  work  of  raising  the  more 
than  $15,000,000  that  were  raised  and  expended  in 
these  labors  of  love  in  caring  and  providing  for  these 
waifs  of  humanity  during  the  many  years  these  noble 
men  have  been  engaged  in  this  great  work,  has  been 
one  of  the  functions  and  the  duties  of  decarnate  men 
or  angels.  They — the  angels — influence  and  teach  in 
a  similar  manner,  viz.,  by  strongly  impressing  their 
views  upon  the  leaders  of  mankind.  They  not  only 
impart  ideas  in  this  way ;  they  set  up  or  pull  down  the 
leaders  of  mankind  accordingly  as  they  serve  or  fail 
to  serve  the  best  intersts  of  human  kind.  In  Dan.  iv., 
17,  we  are  given  an  example  of  this  interference  on 
the  part  of  the  statesmen  of  the  spiritual  world  with 
the  affairs  of  human  life.  "This  matter  is  by  the 
decree  of  the  watchers" — those  statesmen  whose  duty 
it  is  to  watch  over  human  life  and  to  carefully  study 
the  effects  of  those  measures  which  have  already  been 
introduced  to  accomplish  their  intended  results — "and 
the  demand  by  the  word  of  the  holy  ones:  to  the  in- 
tent that  the  living  may  know  that  the  Most  High 
ruleth  in  the  kingdom  of  men  and  giveth  it  to  whom- 
soever he  will  and  (often)  setteth  up  over  it  the 
basest  of  men." 

The  "holy  ones"  are  manifestly  those  higher  spiritual 
teachers,  and  statesmen  who,  by  their  superior  wisdom, 
are  such  as  determine  the  policies  and  measures  to 
be  adopted  at  the  various  stages  and  crises  in  human 
affairs. 

Several  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  filled 
with  accounts  of  these  interferences  by  the  higher 
powers  with  the  affairs  of  the  Jews,  who  were  repeat- 

103 


MAN'S.  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

edly  sent  into  exile  or  involved  in  desolating  wars,  or 
punished  in  some  manner  by  having  set  over  them 
"the  basest  of  men,"  and  for  hundreds  of  years. 

In  this  way  they  got  rid  of  the  idolators,  so  much 
so  that  at  last  the  Jews  are  a  united  nation  and  people, 
a  cosmopolitan  race  that  are  probably  more  numerous 
than  at  any  time  in  their  past  history,  and  are  more 
true  to  their  religion,  their  country  and  their  home, 
though  living  under  all  skies  the  world  over,  than  any 
other  race,  nation,  tribe  or  people  to  be  found  anywhere 
on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth.  They  have  become 
thoroughbreds,  and  the  only  people  on  the  footstool 
who  steadfastly  worship  the  only  one,  true  God. 


JESUS  AND  JUDAS. 


That  the  Scriptures  might  be  fulfilled." — Jesus. 
'For  this  purpose  have  I  raised  thee  up." — Jehovah 
to  Pharaoh, 

"I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness.  I  make 
peace  and  create  evil.  I,  the  Lord,  do  all  these  things." 
— Jehovah  to  Jeremiah. 

"Shall  the  clay  say  to  him  that  shapeth  it.  What 
makest  thou?" — Ibid. 

The  human  mind  can  conceive  of  no  greater  con- 
trast than  is  presented  by  these  two  greatest  of  the 
actors  that  wrought  in  this  greatest  and  grandest  of 
the  world's  tragedies.  And  yet  there  is  another  side 
and  another  light  in  which  the  divine  humanity  is 
destined  to  view  this  vast  drama  that  involves  worlds  in 
its  fulfillment. 

For  the  great  Architect  of  all  the  worlds  worketh 
by  wise  plans,  some  of  which  are  not  so  easily  com- 
prehended by  man  in  his  early  spiritual  conditions  and 
estates,  and  must  patiently  abide  the  time  when  his 
Creator  shall  permit  him  to  have  a  better  knowledge 
of  the  ways,  means  and  methods  by  which  he  works 

104 


'MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

out  the  vast  plans,  purposes  and  problems  of  an  in- 
finite universe. 

*Tor  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither 
are  your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord.  For  as  the 
heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways 
higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your 
thoughts." — Isaiah  i.,  8,  9. 

Yes,  the  Creator,  our  own  Heavenly  Father,  is  often 
obliged  to  employ  human  means  for  the  furtherance 
and  the  execution  of  His  mighty  plans  and  purposes 
in  the  field  of  creation  that  appear  questionable  and 
even  worse  in  the  eyes  of  the  uninstructed  man,  who 
does  not  understand  the  wisdom,  power  or  the  needs 
of  the  Creator  in  the  choice  of  His  means  and  instru- 
mentalities for  the  accomplishment  of  His  great  and 
wise  purposes. 

Among  the  most  important  of  the  instruments  se- 
lected by  Jehovah  for  the  accomplishment  of  His  great 
and  beneficent  plans  for  the  uplifting  and  salvation  of 
mankind,  we  must  regard  those  of  Pharaoh  and  Judas 
to  have  been  the  most  important  of  all  the  baser  means 
which  He  employed  in  their  execution.  Taking  the  case 
of  Pharaoh,  whom  Jehovah  (Lord)  informed  that: 
"For  this  very  cause  he  had  raised  him  up  to  show 
in  thee  my  power  and  that  my  name  may  be  declared 
among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth." 

The  Lord  had  two  very  important  objects  to  ac- 
complish in  raising  up  this  man  Rameses  and  seating 
him  upon  the  throne  of  the  Pharaohs  at  the  time  He 
purposed  to  return  the  Israelites  to  their  original  home 
in  Palestine,  and  one  of  these  objects  was  to  make 
the  very  name  of  the  Egyptian  king  and  his  people, 
and  even  the  very  land  of  Egypt,  utterly  and  forever 
hateful  to  them  by  the  bea'stly  tyrannies  and  oppres- 
sions which  they  would  experience  at  the  hands  of  both 
king  and  people,  so  that  they  would  never  in  the  future 
have  any  desire  to  return  to  the  land  of  their  op- 
pressors, though  it  was  at  the  same  time  the  land  of 
their  fathers,  and  had  been  for  the  past  four  hundred 
years.  What  Jehovah  intended  to  accomplish  by  His 
treatment  of  Pharaoh  was  to  spread  abroad  among  the 

105 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

nations  many  wonderful  reports — many  of  which 
would  be  greatly  exaggerated — of  his  wonderful  deal- 
ings with  Pharaoh  and  his  two  peoples,  but  were 
more  especially  intended  for  the  peoples  of  Palestine, 
to  cause  them  to  stand  in  awe  of  the  Jews  and  their 
God  and  to  thus  render  their  entrance  into  Palestine 
and  their  final  settlement  there  more  easy  of  ac- 
complishment. 

At  one  time,  when  the  heart  of  Pharaoh  relented 
under  the  terrible  discipline  of  Jehovah,  and  was 
minded  to  let  his  people  go,  Jehovah  interfered  and 
"hardened  Pharaoh's  heart,"  in  order  that  he  might 
have  the  opportunity  to  chastise  both  the  king  and  his 
two  peoples  a  while  longer,  until  all  should  become 
wholly  sick  of  each  other  and  willing  and  anxious  to 
forever  separate  and  be  quit  of  each  other — without 
any  desire  to  ever  return. 

For  the  eternal  God  was  engaged  in  the  business  of 
accouching  a  great  nation,  and  one  that  was  and  yet 
is  destined  to  play  a  marvelous  role  in  the  affairs  of 
human  civiHzation.  This  disciplinary  course  pursued 
toward  the  Jewish  people  by  the  higher  powers  of  the 
spiritual  world  has  been  continued  down  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  They  have  been  exiled  in  greater  or  less 
extent,  several  times  during  the  past  3,500  years,  until 
they  have  become  a  race  of  religious  thoroughbreds, 
that  will  stand  by  their  religion  through  thick  and  thin 
and  under  all  circumstances  the  world  over — the  ex- 
ample of  a  great  people  that,  without  home,  country 
or  liberty,  and  never  has  been  permitted  access  to  the 
land  in  any  other  country,  have,  despite  all,  and  in  all 
countries,  maintained  their  autocracy,  nationality  and 
their  religion  in  the  most  marvelous  way  of  any 
people  that  has  ever  struck  time. 

This  disciplinary  dispensation  will  not,  cannot,  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  situation  in  Europe,  be  gotten 
rid  of  fully  and  finally  until  "the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles 
ha^  come  in;  or,  in  other  words,  until  the  tyrannies 
that  Jews,  in  common  with  all  other  old  world 
peoples  suffer  from,  have  been  wholly  and  forever 
removed,  and  free  governments  for    all    have    been 

106 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

established  in  their  places.  They  can  never  be  gotten 
rid  of  until  the  millennial  era,  now  coming  in  the  midst 
of  the  roost  terrible  wars,  whose  final  object  is  intended 
for  the  removal  of  the  obstacles  that  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  realization  of  this  marvelous  era  of  uni- 
versal love,  joy,  peace  and  fraternity  when  these  great 
difficulties  in  the  path  of  the  divine  humanity  have 
been  fully  and  finally  and  forever  taken  away. 

For  the  new  civilization,  the  *'new  heavens  and  the 
new  earth,"  can  never  be  fully  introduced  and  laid 
upon  its  living  and  eternal  foundations  until  every 
last  vestige  of  the  old  materialistic  civilization  has  been 
utterly  and  everlastingly  destroyed  and  taken  from 
the  earth.  And  that  new  civilization  is  the  new  city 
described  by  John  in  Rev.  xxi.,  1-27.  In  Rev.  xviii., 
1-24,  we  have  a  vivid  description  of  the  old  Babylonish 
civilization  and  the  manner  of  its  utter  overthrow  and 
destruction,  in  the  21st  verse  of  that  chapter. 

In  the  case  of  Judas  we  have  an  equally  plain  ex- 
ample of  one  who  has  been  foreordained  by  the  higher 
powers  to  the  execution  of  a  certain  part  in  the  great 
tragedy  of  Jesus  and  the  cross. 

'*I  speak  not  of  you  all,"  said  Jesus  on  that  mem- 
orable night.  '7  know  whom  I  have  chosen:  But  that 
the  Scripture  may  be  fulfilled,  he  that  eateth  bread  with 
me  hath  lifted  up  his  heel  against  me !" 

We  have  in  this  and  in  other  Bible  passages  a  plain 
intimation  that  it  was  both  foreseen  and  also  fore- 
intended  by  the  higher  powers  that  someone  should 
perform  that  part  in  the  great  tragedy,  but  it  is  also 
plainly  stated  by  the  Master,  both  here  and  elsewhere 
in  the  gospels. 

Jesus  even  proceeds  so  far  as  to  prompt  Judas  to 
hurry  up  the  dreadful  work,  and  not  keep  him  any 
longer  than  possible  in  dread  suspense.  "That  thou 
doest,  do  quickly."  Fearful,  too,  probably,  lest  Judas 
should  falter  in  his  purpose,  and  His  own  plans  and 
purposes  for  the  completion  of  His  great  life  work 
for  the  salvation  of  mankind  should  in  some  way  be 
deferred  or  defeated  altogether. 

Then,  too,  He  might  not  have  been  sure  of  Him- 

107 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

self — of  His  own  ability  to  maintain  Himself  in  that 
sublime  height  of  passion  He  had  wrought  himself 
up  into  in  order  to  sustain  Him  in  His  endurance  of 
His  terrible  self-inflicted  ordeal !  That  thou  doest, 
do  quickly/'  "Be  sure  of  yourself  and  of  the  ac- 
complishment of  your  purpose,  and  don't  keep  me  in 
this  fearful  suspense  any  longer  than  necessary!" 

In  this  manner  he  even  appeals  to  the  mercy  of 
Judas,  and  entreats  him  to  be  as  expeditious  as  pos- 
sible in  the  execution  of  his  purpose  and  not  to  hold 
Him  in  that  tremendous,  heart-rending  agony  of  un- 
certainty and  doubt  which  He  soon  after  manifested  in 
the  garden  when  He  retired  by  himself  to  intercede 
with  His  heavenly  Father.  "If  it  be  possible,  let  this 
cup  pass  from  me.  Nevertheless,  not  as  I  will,  but  as 
thou  wilt!" 

It  is  the  loftiest  sublimity  of  heroism — ^the  scene, 
the  passion,  the  actor,  are  blended,  as  it  were,  in  one^ 
the  greatest,  grandest  and  most  terribly  glorious  ever 
endured  upon  this  dear  old  earth  or  elsewhere  by  gods 
or  men. 

The  magnitude  and  importance  of  the  part  enacted 
by  the  man  Judas  appears  never  to  have  been  fully 
understood   in   its   highest   significance   down   to  the 
present  time.     Mankind  appears  to  have  been  content 
to  receive  the  benefits  of  a  salvation  purchased  by  the 
assassination  of  the  man  Jesus,  but  curse  the  authors 
of  it,  and  especially  the  man  Judas.     If  the  tragic 
death  of  Christ  upon  the  cross  and  the  part  taken  in 
it  by  Judas  could  have  easily  been  omitted,  is  it  not 
plain  to  see  that  the  authorities  of  the  spiritual  world 
who  oversee  and   superintend  the   affairs   of  human 
civilization   (see  Dan.  iv.,  17)   would  never  have  put 
Him  into  such  tragic  and  awful  experiences?     "And 
I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  shall  draiu  all  men  unto  me"    Such 
is  the  estimate  of  the  value  placed  upon  it  by  the 
Master  himself  in  one  of  His  discourses  to  His  dis- 
ciples some  time  before  His  death.     And  it  is  a  sub- 
lime truth.     Yes,  give  a  little  longer  time  for  the 
operation  of  the  benign  principles  involved  in  the  life, 
death  and  sufferings  of  Christ  to  produce  their  natural 

108 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

effects  upon  mankind,  it  will  be  found  that  this  divine 
humanity  of  ours  has  been  integrally  united  and  crys- 
tallized centrally  about  this  man  Jesus. 

Yes,  as  elsewhere  stated,  this  wonderful  bulletin  of 
the  cross  and  all  its  containments  has  been  the  great- 
est driving  and  uplifting  force  connected  with  all 
Christianity ;  yea,  with  civilization  itself. 

The  vast  importance  of  the  relation  which  this  man 
Judas  sustains,  and  will  ever  sustain,  to  this  sublime 
inter-world's  tragedy,  will  never  be  fully  unfolded  and 
understood  until  man  himself  has  risen  up  to  a  better 
understanding  of  the  nature,  the  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities of  the  Creator  Himself  in  all  His  relations  with 
mankind.  His  own  dear  children,  both  in  this  world, 
the  other  world  and  all  worlds.  That  the  higher  au- 
thorities of  the  spirit  world — yea,  the  Father  Himself — 
believed  it  to  be  indispensable  to  the  salvation  of 
mankind  that  Jesus  should  come  down  to  this  world 
and  suffer  many  things  from  the  Jews,  "and  be  killed," 
there  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  student  of  the 
Bible. 

Also  that  the  Fatherhood,  by  whom  He  was  sent, 
believed  that  His  suffering,  betrayal  and  death  were 
a  very  needful  part,  yea,  sustained  a  positive  relation 
thereto  of  untold  value  to  the  scheme  of  human  re- 
demption, is  equally  evident  from  all  the  evidence  in 
the  case,  especially  if  we  consider  the  tender  and 
touching  appeal  of  Jesus  to  His  heavenly  Father  when 
in  His  awful  agony  in  the  garden,  he  besought  Him 
to  release  Him  from  the  dreadful  ordeal  if  the  plan 
of  salvation  could  be  successfully  completed  without 
such  a  terrible  sacrifice!  "Oh,  my  Father,  if  it  be 
possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me.  Nevertheless,  not 
as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt."  And  again  He  went  away 
and  prayed,  saying:  "Oh,  my  Father,  if  this  cup  may 
not  pass  away  from  me  except  I  drink  it,  thy  will 
be  done!"  So  that  "an  angel  from  heaven  appeared 
unto  him,  strengthening  him." 

How  unutterably  sad  and  agonizing  is  this  appeal 
to  His  heavenly  Father  to  stay  the  enactment  of  a 
death  so  inconceivably  tragical  and  awful!    But  the 

log 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

heavens  refuse  any  stay  of  the  dread  sentence,  though 
an  angel  is  sent  to  comfort  and  strengthen  Him  against 
His  appalling  sorrows,  sufferings  and  death. 

But  the  heavens  are  dumb  to  His  piteous  appeal  to 
stay  the  execution  of  a  death  so  inconceivably  cruel 
and  awful.  No  pitying  hand  is  extended  to  arrest  the 
execution  of  the  terrible  impending  sentence — the 
awful  spectacle  of  a  God  expiring  on  the  cross  in  the 
midst  of  unutterable  agonies  is  too  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  fulfillment  and  perfection  of  His  own  and  His 
Father's  scheme  for  the  salvation  of  a  world,  is  too 
imperative  and  absolute,  to  admit  of  any  arrest  or 
even  delay  in  its  enactment.  And  the  terrible  Fates 
move  forward!  No  stop!  No  stay!  To  the  onward 
march  of  the  eternal  destinies! 

'"My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 
are  His  last  expiring  and  despairing  words  when  sus- 
pended upon  the  cross. 

"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do^'  is  one  of  the  last  of  the  loving  words  to  which 
He  gave  utterance  while  hanging  on  the  cross  and  wit- 
nessing the  frenzied  mob  as  they  sought  to  increase 
the  keenness  of  His  expiring  agonies. 

And  it  is  for  the  perfection  of  this  sublime  plan 
and  purpose  of  the  spiritual  heavens  to  arrest  the 
attention  of  this  densely  ignorant,  unspiritual  child- 
man  and  cause  him  to  look  up,  set  him  to  thinking 
upon  spiritual  things  and  induce  him  to  forsake  his 
sins  and  lead  a  new  life  before  God,  angels  and  men. 
For  the  perfection  of  this  wonderful  scheme  for  the 
redemption  of  a  world,  this  mighty  advertisement  of 
the  everlasting  divine  word,  the  man  Judas  was  em- 
ployed by  the  angelic  authorities  of  the  spiritual  world 
to  supply  the  darkest  part  of  the  dark  background  in 
the  picture  that  was  to  furnish  a  proper  setting  for 
the  sublime  spiritual  lights,  the  moral  grandeurs  and 
glories  displayed  by  the  divine  God-man  during  His 
unutterable  sorrows,  anguishes  and  agonies  in  the 
garden,  at  the  trial  and  while  suspended  'twixt  heaven 
and  earth  upon  the  cruel  cross.    The  picture  is  perfect. 

no 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

We  look  in  vain  for  anything  that  approaches  it  in 
tragic  grandeur  and  sublime,  infinite  glory! 

No  wonder  that  the  Father  refused  to  release  Him 
from  enacting  His  part  in  the  mighty  all-worlds  drama 
and  tragedy,  for  such  it  is. 

"And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  shall  draw  all  men  unto 
me." 

And  so  it  is  and  will  be  until  the  whole  world  shall 
be  lifted  up  into  the  eternal  brotherhood  of  man,  and 
into  perfect  harmony  with  the  Fatherhood  of  the  Gods. 

To  assist  the  angels  in  their  wondrous  plan  for  the 
moral  and  spiritual  evolution  of  the  divine  man  this 
man  Judas  was  specially  incarnated.  His  treachery 
toward  his  teacher  and  noblest  friend;  his  conspiracy 
against  him  with  the  priests;  his  sale  of  Christ  for  a 
few  paltry  "pieces  of  silver";  his  speedy  and  terrible 
remorse  at  the  consequences  of  his  treason;  his  self 
immolation  and  execution,  are  all  necessary  features 
in  the  mighty  picture  and  wholly  indispensable  to  the 
perfect  fulfillment  of  the  purposes  of  the  Gods. 

To  prepare  himself  for  the  execution  of  his  part 
in  this  business  of  the  spiritual  uplifting  of  a  world, 
it  became  necessary  for  him  to  spiritually  degrade  him- 
self and  to  incarnate  in  a  sphere  and  in  a  family  of  a 
lower  order  morally  than  the  one  he  had  previously 
been  attached  to  in  that  life,  in  order  that  he  might 
become  suitably  conditioned  for  the  base  part  he 
was  to  play  therein.  It  was  an  act  of  much  heroism 
on  his  part;  one  that  has  cost  him  the  execrations 
and  the  curses  of  mankind  for  nearly  2,000  years,  be- 
sides centuries  of  hard  work  to  regain  lost  ground. 
There  is  no  authority  that  can  repeal  the  law  that  gov- 
erns the  action  of  fire  on  the  person  of  the  man  that 
falls  into  it,  no  matter  what  may  have  been  his  motive 
in  getting  there. 

He  can  only  be  aided  in  escaping  from  its  effects 
by  an  act  of  forgiveness  toward  him  on  the  part  of 
mankind  that  will  eventually  lift  him  up  out  of  them. 
But  will  they  grant  it?    Most  assuredly,  yes! 

Ill 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

Jesus  forgave  His  enemies  even  when,  suspended  on 
the  cross,  they  were  tormenting  Him.  And  He  has 
not  only  bid  us  to  imitate  Him  in  the  exercise  of  this 
simple  act  of  magnanimity  towards  those  who  in  some 
way  have  been  estranged  from  us,  but  He  has  also 
put  it  as  a  prior  condition  to  our  being  forgiven  by  our 
heavenly  Father  that  we  also  forgive  our  enemies, 
and  the  eternal  law  in  itself  is  equally  mandatory  in  its 
demands  'upon  us  in  this  respect. 

*'For  if  ye  forgive  men  their  trespasses,  your 
heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive  you.  But  if  ye  for- 
give not  men  their  trespasses,  neither  will  your  Father 
forgive  your  trespasses."  The  law  is  absolute  and 
eternal.  Yea,  the  churches  must  learn  to  exercise  a 
broader  and  deeper  spirit  of  love  and  charity  toward 
all  men  everywhere,  and  to  that  end  they  must  practice 
a  greater  charity  toward  each  other  and  toward  the 
man  Judas,  who  has  sinned  more  deeply  against  old 
theology  than  against  reason,  justice  and  the  eternal 
truth  of  things.  It  will  beget  a  newer  and  more 
catholic  spirit  in  them,  that  will  bind  them  more  per- 
fectly together  in  one  as  an  irresistible  force  to  com- 
plete the  evangelization  of  the  world.  And  to  the 
more  perfect  accomplishment  of  this  most  glorious 
consummation  of  all  good,  the  perfect  union  and  har- 
mony of  the  forces  of  civilization,  the  churches  must 
study  more  deeply  the  functionation  of  the  divine 
humanity,  not  only  among  the  churches  themselves, 
but  everywhere  in  all  conditions,  states,  estates  and 
offices  that  exist  among  the  whole  vast  family  of  man. 

They  must  look  more  deeply  into  the  universal  and 
eternal  causes  of  sin  and  transgression  by  man  of  the 
eternal  law  itself.  For,  as  the  beloved  Socrates  has  so 
well  stated  the  facts:  ''Vice  is  ignorance:  Virtue  is 
knowledge.**  Yes,  vice  is  simply  ignorance  concreted 
in  the  life  of  man,  and  virtue  is  its  polaric  opposite. 

For  this  will  become  the  creation  of  a  new  spirit, 
which  in  truth  is  a  holy  spirit — the  holy  spirit,  or  spirit 
of  the  whole.  For  the  holy  spirit,  the  "Pneuma 
Agion/*  is  the  harmonious  coaction  of  every  office  and 
organ,  every  force  and  function  in  universal  life,  as 

112 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

that  life  proceedeth  outward  to  consummate  creation 
in  all  its  infinite  departments  of  being.  It  forms  the 
infinite  holo-cosmos  that  embraces  within  one  vast 
sweep  of  conscious  and  coactive  energy  all  forces  and 
forms  of  beings  create  and  increate — the  universal 
harmonium  and  oversouL  God  over  all  and  blessed 
forevermore. 

It  is  this  "spirit  of  the  whole'*  that  presides  over 
the  conception  of  men  and  of  nations  that  are  "raised 
up"  to  perform  some  special,  important  office  in  the 
divine  humanity.  And  it  was  this  holy  spirit  that 
brooded  over  the  parents  of  the  beloved  Christ  in  their 
incarnating  conception  of  this  minister  plenipotentiary, 
healer  and  teacher  that  descended  from  the  skies  to 
organ  every  force  and  function  in  universal  life,  as 
earth,  to  illuminate,  to  heal,  to  instruct  and  to  bless 
mankind.  It  was  the  literal  rendering  of  certain  pass- 
ages in  the  genealogy  of  Jesus  that  caused  the  church 
to  make  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  Jesus  was  begot- 
ten without  earthly  father — a  mistake,  however,  that, 
like  many  another  literal  translation  of  the  Word,  hath 
been  a  source  of  spiritual  profit  up  to  a  certain  era  in 
the  life  of  humanity,  when  the  literal  and  symbolical 
sense  of  the  Word  must  give  place  to  the  spiritual  and 
scientific  sense  of  it,  for  the  spiritual  freedoms  and 
other  spiritual  uses  of  the  thousands  who  are  marching 
forward  into  the  new  dispensation. 

It  is  the  inability  to  see  and  the  unwillingness  to 
permit  these  beneficent  changes  and  transitions  that 
hath  heretofore  created  so  much  and  terrible  friction 
and  war  among  men  of  different  creeds  and  beliefs. 
This  irrational  and  ignorant  opposition  to  the  rational 
and  healthful  progress  of  humanity  has  been  personified 
in  Revelations,  chapter  xx.,  under  the  likeness  of  a 
dragony  which  is  the  Devil,  or  Do-evil,  and  Satanas, 
which  means  opposition,  or  irrational  and  unjust  hatred 
and  opposition  to  all  proper  growth  and  progress  in 
human  life. 

It  is  the  misguidance  of  mankind  by  many  of  those 
who  have  been  appointed  by  Heaven  to  instruct,  protect 
and  guide  them  until  they  have  attained  unto  a  proper 

"3 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

moral  and  mental  status  to  guide  and  govern  them- 
selves, when  they  will  be  called  upon  to  surrender 
the  autocracy  and  allow  the  people  to  govern  them- 
selves. 

Fortunately,  there  be  some  of  the  rulers  of  the  world 
who  appear  at  least  to  understand  this  outworking 
of  the  divine  law  that  destinates  the  life  of  the  divine 
humanity,  and  are  seeking  to  make  them  ready  for  the 
mighty  changes  that  await  them.  A  little  hearty  and 
appreciative  opposition  and  restraint,  to  hold  the  people 
back  until  they  are  more  advanced  and  better  prepared 
to  assume  all  the  prerogatives  of  self-government,  may 
not  be  amiss  for  a  time  yet. 

But  the  inevitable  eternal  destinies  of  the  great 
family  of  man  are  too  palpable  and  manifest  to  be 
misunderstood.  It  would  be  far  better  for  the  people 
and  for  their  rulers  that  the  latter  shall  seek  to  pro- 
mote rather  than  to  oppose  this  political  and  spiritual 
accouchment  of  the  world's  peoples  into  self-governing 
nations,  that  is  now  so  swiftly  progressing  under  the 
leadership  of  Heaven. 

What  a  seeming  pity  it  is  there  are  not  a  few  more 
Dom  Pedros  in  the  world  to  help  the  people  make 
themselves  ready  for  their  transition  out  of  the  old 
order  of  things  into  the  new — the  order  of  the  "new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth,"  only  making  such  and 
so  much  apparent  opposition  to  the  revolution  by  which 
the  people  assumed  the  reins  of  the  government  as  to 
appease  his  friends  and  family,  who  were  opposed  to 
his  beneficent  schemes  for  helping  his  people  into  self- 
rule  by  means  of  wise  and  judicious  measures  for  their 
true  growth  and  progress.  It  may  be  possible  that 
Europe  has  at  least  one  ruler,  Emperor  William  of 
Germany,  who  has  already  accomplished  a  vast  work 
for  the  advancement  of  his  people,  with  what  ulterior 
motives  it  is  difficult  to  say,  perhaps — whether  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  conciliating  the  people  into  an  endorse- 
ment of  his  dynasty  for  all  time,  or  to  educate  them 
into  an  intelligent  perception  of  the  rights,  duties  and 
obligations  of  self-government  with  the  intent  to  hand 

114 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

it  over  to  them  as  soon  as  he  beUeves  them  fully  pre- 
pared for  it. 

It  is  probably  nothing  more  than  justice  to  assume 
that  the  great  Emperor — for  great  he  certainly  is — 
has  been  actuated  by  the  wiser  and  nobler  of  the  two 
alternatives. 

If  our  supposition  be  the  true  one— if  he  is  con- 
ducting a  campaign  of  education  for  his  people  with 
the  intent  and  purpose  of  turning  over  the  government 
into  their  hands  by  peaceful  and  voluntary  revolution, 
it  will  indeed  be  a  glorious  act  of  self-abnegation — one 
that  will  place  him  in  the  very  highest  role  among 
the  rulers  of  earth  and  will  endear  him  to  the  nations 
and  peoples  of  the  world  for  all  coming  time. 


AN  IMPORTANT  LAW  OF  PROGRESSION  IN 

SPIRIT  LIFE. 

A  far-reaching  and  very  important  law  of  spirit  life 
is  the  one  which  sends  the  spirit  back  to  earth  life  to 
obtain  certain  material  forces  from  those  still  resident 
in  the  flesh,  to  aid  him  in  the  proper  rebuilding  of  his 
own  spirit  body,  in  such  cases  as  those  who,  while  they 
were  living  in  the  flesh,  lived  very  bad  lives,  and  hence, 
when  they  entered  spirit  life,  are  "sick"  spirits,  and 
require  to  be  treated  for  their  maladies  of  earth  life. 
For  all  things  that  affect  the  body  affect  the  mind,  or 
spirit  body,  also,  with  this  difference,  however,  that 
the  ailments  which  the  material  body  (soma)  impresses 
upon  the  spiritual  body  (psyche)  are  more  abiding 
than  are  those  made  by  the  spirit  body  upon  its  ma- 
terial companion,  which  is  dissolved  at  death.  For 
such  is  the  law. 

Since  the  establishment  of  hospitals  in  spirit  life 
for  the  treatment  of  the  ailments  which  the  spirit  man 


MAN'S  PLAC^  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

incurred  while  a  resident  of  earth  life,  vast  numbers 
of  the  insane  and  of  others  who  are  afflicted  with  the 
"ills  that  man  is  heir  to"  are  being  treated,  and  with 
wonderful  success. 

And  the  treatment  of  these  maladies  originating  in 
earth  life  are  not  confined  to  such  only  as  are  passing 
into  spirit  life  at  the  present  time,  but  untold  thou- 
sands of  those  who  entered  it  ages  ago  are  also  the 
subjects  of  this  benign  law  of  treatment.  For  this  is 
the  "Judgment  Day,"  when  even  those  "who  are  in 
their  graves — spiritual — shall  hear  the  voice  of  the 
Son,  and  they  that  hear  shall  live."  This  is  also  the 
era  or  "times  of  the  restitution  of  all  things,"  when 
those  who  were  the  leaders  and  the  rulers  of  mankind 
and  should  have  been  their  teachers  and  helpers,  to 
lead  them  to  a  higher  life,  became  their  oppressors, 
rather,  and  failed  to  discharge  their  duties  to  the 
humbler  classes  when  in  this  life — ^these  great  ones — 
all,  indeed,  who  failed  to  perform  their  duties  to  the 
humbler  classes  in  return  for  the  services  and  uses 
wrought  by  them  for  those  placed  over  them  by  the 
higher  powers — these  mighty  ones  are  descending  by 
myriads,  many  of  them  into  the  very  lowest  dens  of 
darkness,  sorrow  and  despair,  and  are  doing  all  they 
can  to  aid  the  noble  philanthropists  and  sages  in  their 
blessed  work  of  healing  the  sick  of  all  times  and 
conditions. 

Such  is  the  law  of  compensation  placed  upon  them 
by  the  higher  powers  and  the  higher  law,  and  there 
is  no  longer  any  evasion  of  it. 

The  material  body  of  man  is  an  organ  of  the  spiritual 
man  who  lives  within  it  as  in  a  house  of  his  own 
making,  and  fulfills  a  number  of  offices  in  the  life  of 
the  individual.  As  already  stated,  it  is  a  house  or 
tenement  in  which  for  the  time  "he  lives  and  moves 
and  has  his  being." 

It  also  performs  the  office  of  a  stomach  for  the  uses 
of  the  spiritual  man,  wherein,  aided  by  its  correspond- 
ing organ  in  the  spiritual  body,  he  digests,  elaborates 
and  refines  his  foods,  both  temporal  and  spiritual,  for 
both  these  needs  and  requirements  of  the  spiritual  man. 

ii6 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

From  this  laboratory,  as  from  a  common  fountam, 
aided  by  appropriate  machinery,  the  various  foods  thus 
p  prepared  go  forth  into  every  part,  nerve,  cell  and  fiber 

of  both  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  man,  to  refresh, 
rebuild  and  renew  him  in  every  portion  of  his  being, 
though  the  foods  which  the  spiritual  man  selects,  dis- 
tributes and  formulates  unto  itself  for  the  proper  re^ 
newal  of  its  own  tissues,  are  of  a  less  gross  form  and 
degree  than  are  those  foods  and  other  forces  which 
the  more  animal  man  makes  use  of  to  renew  and  re- 
build its  own  proper  structure. 

These  foods  and  other  forms  of  the  life  forces  that 
man  thus  receives  from  the  raw  materials  supplied 
by  nature  come  from  the  heights  and  depths  of  uni- 
versal life,  both  from  the  spiritual  and  the  material 
worlds,  and  are  superintended,  directed  and  moved 
by  the  creative  intelligences  in  the  evolution  of  all 
beings,  both  small  and  great,  material  and  spiritual. 

From  these  foods  thus  appropriated  from  the  vast 
storehouse  of  nature,  man  not  only  supplies  his  own 
and  hourly  needs  in  greatest  measure,  but  from  these 
manifold  foods  which  man  thus  elaborates  and  refines 
within  the  crucible  of  his  own  being.  But  in  their  more 
subtle,  refined  and  spiritual  forms  he  imparts  them  to 
all  who  come  within  the  sphere  and  scope  of  his  own 
being.  "I  am  the  living  bread  that  came  down  from 
heaven:  if  any  man  eat  of  this  bread,  he  shall  live 
forever:  and  the  bread  that  I  will  give  is  my  flesh, 
which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world." 

"I  am  that  Bread  of  Life."  'This  is  the  Bread  that 
Cometh  down  from  Heaven  that  a  man  may  eat  thereof 
and  not  die." 

"The  Jews  therefore  strove  among  themselves  say- 
ing: "How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat?" 

"Jesus  said  unto  them  verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you, 
except  ye  eat  of  the  Hesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and 
drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you.  Who  so 
eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood,  hath  eternal 
life  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day.  For  my 
flesh  is  meat  indeed  and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed.  He 

"7 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

that  eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  dwelleth 
in  me  and  /  in  him." 

*'And  the  man  said:  The  woman  which  thou  gavest 
to  be  with  me,  she  gave  me  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  and 
I  did  eat."  In  all  matters  that  concern  the  Intelligence 
of  man  woman  represents  "Pure  Reason"  or  direct  and 
immediate  perception,  while  man  (as  a  rule)  creeping 
to  all  his  conclusions  by  a  comparatively  slow  process 
of  reasoning,  represents  the  "Rational  understanding" 
as  defined  by  the  Metaphysician  Emanuel  Kant. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  womanly  or  femenoid  Intelli- 
gence is  the  first  to  perceive  great  primal  truths — first 
"eats"  of  them  and  afterwards  hands  them  over  to  the 
man,  or  masculine  intellect,  and  "he  did  eat." 

"'For  there  went  virtue  out  of  him  and  healed  them 
all."  This  ''Virtue"  or  dunamis,  that  in  this  way  went 
out  of  him  and  healed  so  many  of  the  multitudes  that 
came  for  the  purpose  of  being  healed  of  their  diseases 
were  his  personal  loves,  affections,  magnetisms  and 
other  potent  foods  which  he  imparted  to  all  who 
were  in  mental  and  spiritual  touch  and  harmony  with 
him. 

"For  my  flesh  is  meat  indeed  and  my  blood — or  love 
— is  drink  indeed." 

Not  only  did  the  beloved  Christ  possess  this  mar- 
vellous power  or  "gift,"  but  so  also  did  Paul  and 
Peter,  who,  for  e^^ample,  raised  the  dead  Dorcas  to 
life.  In  truth  it  is  a  "gift"  possessed  by  all  healers  in 
every  age,  as  Jesus  himself  prophesied  would  take 
place  with  all  who  believed  in  Him  and  in  His  meth- 
ods and  means  of  healing. 

"If  any  man  believe  in  me  the  works  that  I  do  shall 
He  do  also  and  greater  works  shall  he  do  because  I  go 
to  the  Father." 

And  again:  "And  these  signs  shall  follow  them 
that  believe.  In  my  name  shall  they  cast  out  Devil"*: 
they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues : 

*  *  *  5k  *  *  * 

"They  shall  lay  their  hands  on  the  sick  and  they 
shall  recover." 
All  of  which  predictions  of  the  beloved  Master  have 

ii8 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS.  ^ 

been  literally  and  abundantly  fulfilled  in  modern  times 
both  among  Christian  Scientists,  Spiritualists,  and 
many  others  of  the  "Mind  Cure"  persuasion. 

But  to  return.  A  time  will  come,  as  soon  or  late  it 
comes  to  all,  when  the  material  body  with  all  its  mani- 
fold organs,  functions  and  potencies  must  be  put  aside. 

It  has  fulfilled  the  full  round  of  its  wondrous  being, 
as  Nature  intended,  if  its  "allotted"  time  has  not  been 
cut  short  by  accident,  disease,  or  some  other  of  the 
thousand  and  one  causes  that  produce  premature  death. 
The  spirit  man  passes  on  into  the  realm  of  Spirit  Life. 

We  see  him  no  more  for  the  simple  reason  that  like 
the  electro-motor  he  is  of  too  fine  materials  to  be  cog- 
nizable by  the  gross  unspiritual  five  senses  of  this 
"muddy  vesture  of  decay  that  doth  so  grossly  close 
us  in."  With  the  putting  aside  of  the  material  organ- 
ism he  also  laid  aside  the  material  laboratory  or  stom- 
ach wherewith  he  had  for  long  years  with  the  assist- 
ance and  co-operation  of  its  correspondenting  spiritual 
stomach,  prepared  the  foods  for  his  subsistence  and 
well  being. 

Henceforth  he  will  be  obliged  to  depend  upon  the 
digestive  and  the  elaborative  organs  of  the  spiritual 
body  alone  for  the  means  to  prepare  the  foods  for  his 
daily  and  hourly  uses  and  enjoyments  in  the  spirit 
world.  If  the  spiritual  house  which  he  built  up  during 
his  sojourn  in  the  flesh  be  of  so  high,  pure  and  endur- 
ing character  that  it  shall  require  no  radical  changes 
to  be  made  in  it  afterward  to  adapt  him  to  life  in  the 
spirit  world,  all  is  well  with  him. 

He  has  fulfilled  the  law  of  his  own  being  and  is  at 
peace  within  himself  and  with  God's  great  Universe 
everywhere. 

But  if,  during  his  lifetime  in  the  world,  he  has  been 
building  up  a  diseased  body  both  of  the  material  and 
spiritual  kinds,  he  has  both  sub-consciously  and  uncon- 
sciously been  slowly  drifting  into  what  for  a  better 
name  we  term  "the  Hells"  both  of  a  material  and 
spiritual  character,  which  in  some  of  their  leading 
aspects  will  return  to  him  in  a  more  aggravated  form 
than  in  this  life  of  the  flesh. 

119 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

And  now  since  he  has  not  any  longer  tjie  material 
body  with  all  its  important  organs  and  functions  to 
act  in  concert  with  those  of  the  spirit  body  and  thus  to 
assist  it  in  the  elaboration  of  his  foods,  not  only  such 
as  are  designed  for  ordinary  uses,  but  more  espe- 
cially those  of  another  and  quite  a  different  sort ;  viz., 
such  as  are  intended  to  act  as  alteratives — as  we  in  this 
life  are  in  the  habit  of  terming  them — and  which  he 
must  have  and  use  to  effect  these  important  radical 
changes  which  he  must  undergo  in  order  to  get  rid 
of  the  diseased  conditions  which  he  lived  into  while  in 
earth  life, — ^by  those  spiritual  transformations  that 
will  restore  it  to  healthful  conditions. 

This  is  the  great  difficulty  that  hitherto  has  con- 
fronted man  upon  his  entrance  into  Spirit  life, — a  dif- 
ficulty arising  from  his  dense  ignorance  of  the  laws 
that  regulate  his  own  spiritual  being.  This  was  the 
vast  problem  concerning  the  life  of  man  that  confront- 
ed Swedenborg  and  his  teachers  in  spirit  life,  chief 
among  whom  was  St.  Augustine,  who  was  a  fatalist 
of  the  most  rigid  character  and  from  whom  Sweden- 
borg imbibed  that  terrible  system  of  pessimistic  the- 
ology that  he  has  given  to  the  world. 

Both  St.  Augustine  and  Swedenborg  were  very 
great  and  very  learned  men,  especially  the  latter.  Both 
of  them  were  voluminous  writers.  But  St.  Augustine 
has  done  more  to  shape  the  religious  opinions  of  man- 
kind and  to  impress  upon  them  their  cruel  and  utterly 
relentless  character  than  all  the  primitive  church 
Fathers  put  together. 

The  human  mind  can  contemplate  only  with  aston- 
ishment, the  utter  "sang  froid'*  with  which  Swedenborg 
inverts  the  character  of  the  Divine  Being — "Our 
Father  who  art  in  the  Heavens," — as  delineated  by  the 
beloved  Christ — into  the  very  strange  and  unutterable 
Being  that  still  exists  in  some  of  the  creeds  of  to-day, 
that  has  no  counterpart  in  reason,  science,  philosophy 
or  even  in  any  of  the  Mythologies  that  exist  among 
men  of  the  most  barbarous  tribes — a  doctrine  and  a 
character  that  if  true  and  could  be  realized  in  its 

120 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

enormity   would   dethrone  the   very   foundations   of 
human  reason  itself. 

But  as  we  have  shown  elsewhere,  the  Hells  of  Spirit 
life  as  defined  in  the  creeds  are  couched  in  intensely 
symbolic  language,  which  when  it  is  taken  in  a  literal 
sense,  as  the  churches  have  done  in  the  past  ages  to 
present  times,  justifies  all  the  horrors  of  which  we 
have  spoken.  But  when  used  in  a  spiritual  sense  are 
rational,  just  and  true,  and  places  men  in  perfect  align- 
ment and  harmony  with  universal  law,  and  when  fully 
explained  and  understood  in  all  its  bearings,  as  it  soon 
will  be  by  the  more  adult  spiritual  man,  will  no  longer 
exist  as  a  terror  and  a  stumbling  block  to  human 
reason.  But  on  the  contrary  will  be  a  source  of  great 
joy,  peace  and  divine  satisfaction  to  every  soul  of  man. 

It  was  this  theological  nodus  that  confronted  Swed- 
enborg  at  the  outset  of  his  scriptural  studies  and  in- 
stead of  taking  the  true  spiritual  sense  of  the  word, 
he  fell  into  the  literal  sense  of  it  as  Augustine  and 
others  of  the  Church  Fathers  had  done  before  him, 
and  his  intercourse  with  these  Fathers  in  spirit  life 
had  only  served  to  impress  it  still  more  deeply  upon 
his  own  mind  as  the  true  spiritual  sense  of  the  word, — • 
at  least  in  many  cases  where  the  philosophical  or 
Theosophical  Sense  should  have  been  made  use  of. 

Hence,  he  not  only  put  aside  the  plainest  teachings 
of  the  Master  upon  this  subject,  both  while  still  in  the 
flesh  and  also  after  his  Ascension  when  "he  went  and 
preached  to  the  spirits  in  prison,"  and  in  doing  so  he 
violated  the  plainest  dictates  of  reason  and  humanity, 
the  teachings  of  Science  and  Philosophy,  both  physical 
and  psychical  and  lastly  the  Word  itself,  which  as  an 
authoritative  message  to  mankind  must  of  necessity 
be  in  full  accord  and  harmony  with  the  Bible  as  traced 
everywhere  in  the  great  volume  of  Nature  by  the 
finger  of  the  Almighty,  but  also  upon  the  living  tablets 
of  the  human  soul ! 

But  all  things  take  their  place  upon  this  "vast  scene 
of  man"  in  all  due  order,  time  and  place.  A  new  era 
has  at  last  dawned  upon  both  spirit  world  and  human 
world.    It  is  the  era  of  real  human  progress.    It  is  the 

121 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

establishment  of  a  newer,  higher  and  nobler  standard 
for  the  ''Judgment"  of  mankind. 

''And  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before 
God,  and  the  Books  were  opened — ^viz.,  ''Old  Theo- 
logy"— which  is  the  very  imperfect  and  in  many  re- 
spects very  false  estimate  placed  upon  the  character 
of  man,  by  his  religious  teachers  in  old  theology ;  also 
the  very  crude  and  in  so  many  respects  very  false  esti- 
mate placed  upon  the  true  character  of  mankind  by 
our  works  upon  civil,  social  and  political  law. 

"And  another  book  was  opened  which  is  the  Book 
of  Life  and  the  dead  were  judged  from  the  things 
written  in  the  books." 

The  first  two  books  contain  the  very  imperfect  and 
false  estimates  or  "']udgmQnis''  placed  by  theology 
upon  humanity,  and  are  still  retained  as  an  important 
element  of  the  "general  judgment  now  taking  place, 
because  true  and  vital  in  many  of  their  leading  feat- 
ures, and  which  when  they  are  modified  by  the  higher 
and  more  perfect  Judgments  of  the  marvellous  sciences 
of  the  present  age,  will  constitute  Judgment  in  its  high- 
est and  most  perfect  form. 

And  this  is  the  "Book  of  Life."  It  is  Science,  true 
Religion,  Psychology,  Philosophy,  Philanthropy  and 
every  other  science  that  elucidates  and  ennobles  the 
true  character  of  human  kind,  as  applied  to  the  office  of 
assigning  to  man  his  true  character,  first  as  an  individ- 
ual and  second  as  to  his  rank  and  place  in  the  Univer- 
sal Heavens. 

We  now  return  more  directly  to  the  law  concerned 
in  healing  in  its  metaphysiological  relations  to  the 
treatment  and  the  cure  of  spiritual  and  other  diseases, 
and  as  it  relates  to  both  the  healer  and  his  patient. 

Let  us  inquire  what  it  is  that  takes  place  in  the 
sick  when  they  are  healed  by  the  "laying  on  of  hands" 
as  did  JesuS  and  His  disciples  when  they  were  in  the 
world,  and  has  since  been  done  by  many  healers  of  the 
present  time.  There  is  a  simple  transfusion  of  the 
healthy  "Blood"  of  the  healer  into  every  part  and 
organ  of  the  sick  person,  whereby  he  is  restored  to 
health.     The  living  forces  of  the  healer, — ^the  loves, 

.  122 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

affections,  and  other  personal  magnetisms  enter  into 
every  fiber,  nerve  and  atom  of  the  body  of  the  sick 
person,  and  repelling  the  disease  establish  health  in  its' 
place.  The  entire  physical  man  has  undergone  a  radi- 
cal transformation. 

But  when  the  sick  man  has  put  aside  his  material 
body  and  has  entered  the  spiritual  world,  the  same  law- 
obtains — follows  him  thither,  but  operates  now  under 
somewhat  different  conditions.  In  other  words  he  has 
not  any  longer  the  aid  of  the  material  body  to  assist 
him  in  the  evolution  of  those  forces  which  he  requires 
to  co-operate  with  the  spiritual  forces  within  him  in 
expelling  the  diseases  which  he  took  into  him  by  a  bad 
life  in  the  flesh. 

And  yet  he  will  be  obliged  to  have  these  co-operative 
forces  for  the  repulsion  of  the  diseases  of  the  spiritual 
body, — forces  generated  in  the  material  body,  as  Swed- 
enborg  has  stated  in  N.  480  in  his  "Heaven  and  Hell/' 
But  while  Swedenbory  could  see  no  way  out  of  this 
difficulty  yet  there  is  one  now  made  manifest  by  the 
light  thrown  upon  these  vexing  questions  of  the  mind 
by  the  more  advanced  conditions  of  modern  Science, 
Philosophy  and  a  true  Theosophy,  which  were  not 
much  known  to  Swedenborg  and  the  age  in  which  he 
lived. 

These  co-operative  forces  originating  in  the  material 
body,  which  the  sick  man  of  spirit  life  can  no  longer 
obtain  from  his  own  physical  organism,  having  cast 
it  off  from  him  at  death,  he  can  still  find  an  abundant 
supply  in  the  bodies  and  souls  of  other  people,  and 
from  such  as  still  living  in  the  form  but  in  more 
healthful  and  normal  conditions  spiritually  are  far 
better  adapted  to  his  needs  of  health  and  recovery 
than  any  that  could  be  derived  from  his  own  diseased 
material  body  were  it  still  available  for  his  uses. 

This  divine  source  of  healing  is  one  of  the  greatest 
of  the  prerogatives  of  the  divine  social  man  and  is 
much  more  potent  now  in  the  hospitals  of  the  spiritual 
world  and  applies  to  a  vastlv  wider  range  of  diseases 
there  than  here.  Tn  truth  it  applies  there  to  every  form 
of  disease  and  all  diseases  there  become  more  amenable 

123 


MAN*S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

to  treatment  since  the  sinner  has  got  rid  of  his  old  sick 
body  with  its  diseases  and  its  enticing  passions  and 
appetites,  and  does  not  encounter  so  much  opposition 
from  them  as  when  subject  to  them  in  the  Ufe  of  the 
flesh. 

It  is  this  somewhat  occult  law  discovered  and  de- 
monstrated by  the  old  Greek  philosopher  and  scientist, 
Anaxagoras,  "Father  of  Modern  Science,"  as  he  is 
sometimes  called  to-day.  It  is  this  occult  law  or 
force  that  brings  millions  of  human  beings  after  their 
entrance  into  spirit  life  back  to  their  former  terjrestrial 
habitats  to  become  the  source  of  the  manifold  cranks 
and  other  insane  people  that  fill  insane  asylums,  jails 
and  penetentiaries  that  abound  in  our  land. 

Anaxagoras,  upon  his  entrance  into  spirit  life,  like 
the  wise  Socrates,  chose  to  remain  in  the  lower  spheres 
among  the  people  of  all  ranks,  classes  and  conditions, 
the  better  to  enable  him  (them)  to  study  their  needs 
and  requirements,  and  to  help  them  where  they  re- 
quired help. 

Anaxagoras  discovered,  from  long  and  careful  ob- 
servation among  the  lower  and  other  classes,  that  such 
as  chose  to  remain  in  terrestrial  conditions,  not  seek- 
ing to  escape  the  evils  incurred  by  remaining  in  the 
lower  spheres  by  a  too  early  ascent  into  the  higher.  He 
discovered  that  such  as'  preferred  to  remain  in  touch 
with  the  earth  and  earthly  influences,  and  mingled 
freely  with  all  classes,  and  especially  with  the 
people  of  the  world,  who,  still  in  full  and  active  pos- 
session of  their  earthly  bodies,  could  supply  them  with 
those  terrestrial-spiritual  forces  and  foods  which  they 
required  both  to  sanitate  and  to  rebuild  their  diseased 
spirit  bodies,  that  these  by  long  subjecting  themselves 
to  terrestrial  influences  became  gradually  improved  in 
their  personal  and  sanitary  conditions.  Like  Anteus, 
the  Son  of  Ge,  or  Earth,  who  wrestled  with  Hercules, 
they  became  stronger  and  better  by  coming  into  and  re- 
maining in  touch  with  dear  old  Mother  Earth  and  her 
benign  and  salutary  influences. 

By  some  to  us  as  yet  unknown  and  mysterious  im- 
pulse, the  dog  when  bitten  by  a  poisonous  serpent,  is 

124 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

said  to  retire  by  himself  where  he  is  not  likely  to  be 
disturbed  and  buries  the  bitten  part  in  the  earth  and 
lets  it  remain  for  days  perhaps  subject  to  its  sanitive 
potencies. 

Physicians  have  made  the  important  discovery  that 
the  earth  poultice  is  one  of  the  very  best  applications 
that  can  be  made  to  wounds  and  other  lesions  of  the 
body  of  certain  classes  or  kinds. 

These  forms  of  sanitation  would  likely  be  more  pop- 
ular were  it  not  for  the  name  and  some  degree  of  in- 
convenience that  attach  to  them. 

But  man  has  adopted  the  sand  bath  and  the  mud 
bath,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  if  both  of  them  may  not 
become  more  popular  as  time  passes.  Certain  it  is 
that  terrestrial  and  semi-terrestrial  influences  and  po- 
tencies play  a  wonderful  part  in  the  sanitary  means 
and  methods  employed  by  the  angels  in  the  treatment 
and  cure  of  vast  numbers  of  the  diseases  that  afflict 
mankind  in  the  lower  spheres  of  spirit  life,  according 
to  their  word. 


PRE-EXISTENCE. 


One  morn  beside  the  hedgerow  'neath  the  trees- 

The  lofty  Eucalyptus — I  espied 
A  glorious  *Psyche  wing  the  early  breeze, 

Dancing  and  prancing  on  the  morning  tide. 

But  yesterday  a  dull,  unsightly  worm 

Crawling  and  sprawling  on  maternal  breast — 

To-day  a  thing  of  life,  a  glorious  form 
Cleaving  the  air  with  wondrous  life  and  zest. 


♦The  large  golden  lyre-winged  butterfly.     The  Greeks 
had    but    one    word    for    Soul  and    for   the    Butterfly,    viz.: 
Psyche,  which  they  regarded  as  the  true  symbol  of  the 
soul  of  man  in  all  its  beautiful  metamorphoses.     The  in- 
cident took  place  just  as  I  have  related  it. 

123 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

With  joy  I  hailed  it  and  in  converse  free. 

"Oh,   glorious   sprite,"   said   I,   "whence   comest 
thou  here? 
From  Sunland  or  from  some  more  far  country 

Where  Angels  dwell  in  some  celestial  sphere?" 

"Did  *Eos,  Painter  of  the  Dawn,  portray 

Those  rainbow  tints  upon  thy  dainty  wing, 

Or  did  Apollo  with  his  lyre  for  aye 
Impart  such  power  that  as  they  soar  they  sing?" 

My  only  answer  was  a  higher  flight. 

Cleaving  the  air  as  if  in  perfect  scorn 
Of  earth  and  all  that  dwell  within  its  light 

And  all  who  to  its  miseries  are  born. 

"Spirit  of  life  and  beauty,"  then  cried  I, 

"Canst  thou  not  answer  one  who  though  earth's 
pawn 

Like  thee  hath  spanned  the  past  eternity — 
Cotemporary  of  Creation's  dawn? 

"I  am  not  all  unworthy,  but  have  sought 
To  dwell  in  harmony  with  all  human  kind ; 

Nor  these  alone,  but  in  my  inmost  thought 

Have  loved  all  meaner  things  with  fervent  mind. 

"Say,  canst  thou  tell  me  aught  of  former  life, 

Of  blest  Nirvana  or  of  Devachan, 
Where  once  we  dwelt  so  free  from  pain  and  strife 
Which  here  so  blurs  the  life  of  gods  and  men? 

"Don't  tell  me  you  forget ;  it  can't  be  true ! 

In  thy  dear  brightness  thou  recallest  well 
The  long,  bright  halcyon  days  when  I  and  you 

In  those  high  spheres  knew  naught  of  earth's  dark 
spell. 


*  Eos  means  Dawn. 

126 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

"Bring  me  some  token  of  that  blessed  time 

When  hfe  was  one  long  dream  of  conscious  bliss 

Where  oft  we  winged  those  heavenly  airs  sublime 
Unconscious  of  the  cares  and  tears  of  this. 

"Bright  messenger  of  the  dawn,  so  free. 

When  yon  bright  orb   spread  his  first  glorious 
beams — 

When  sang  the  stars  in  all  their  youthful  glee — 
Repeat  to  me  what  were  thy  morning  dreams! 

"Oh,  say  not  that  thou  knowest  naught  of  this, 
Since  thou  art  Psyche,  free  from  earthly  forms. 

While  I,  still  prisoned  in  this  earth-shell,  seek  release 
To  find  again  the  sun  that  ever  warms. 

"Still  art  thou  dumb !  Ah,  couldst  thou  say  thy  say 
How  it  would  shame  professors  of  the  college 

Who  are  delving  in  the  mud  of  earth  for  aye 
To  find  the  rootlets  of  the  'tree  of  knowledge !' 

"But  wisdom  ofttimes  is  most  eloquent 

When  it  sits  dumb  before  the  word  it  brings! 

Words  have  no  power  to  tell  the  message  sent, 
And  what  the  sage  can't  say  the  poet  sings. 

"Fain  would  I  learn  if  thou  canst  tell  me  now 
The  wondrous  mysteries  of  Re-incarnation? 

'Twould  be  a  marvellous  story  as  I  trow 
And  dim  the  glories  of  the  first  creation ! 

"Reincarnation  is  Creation's  Law — 
By  it  the  Monad  doth  ascend  to  man, 

Man  to  the  angel,  angel  to  the  God 
Qne  universal  and  consistent  plan. 

"Say,  wast  thou  present  when  our  dear  old  eartK 

First  out  of  Chaos  into  Cosmos  came? 
Is  Vega  or  Arcturus  prior  of  birth  ? 

Lord  Sirius  or  our  own  great  God  of  flame? 

127 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

"Wast  thou  a  witness  when  the  morning  stars 
Together  sang,  the  new-born  universe? 

Teach  me  that  song,  if  love  of  truth  inspires, 
I  fain  would  place  it  in  my  htjmble  verse. 

"Perchance,  but  just  now  freed,  thou  canst  not  say, 
Since  Time  hath  rule  in  all  sublunar  things ; 

If  so,  ril  patient  wait  another  day 

And  greet  thee  when  the  bird  of  morning  sings. 

"Still  art  thou  Sphynx?  Perchance  it  may  be  wrong 
To  filch  the  secret  story  of  Creation ; 

Perhaps  I  do  but  push  my  quest  too  strong. 
And  ought  to  wait  till  the  next  decarnation. 

"But  that's  of  little  use  to  Fleshly  men 

Who  hunger  for  some  freshly  inspired  pages 

Who  have  no  wish  to  get  beyond  their  ken. 
But  famish  on  the  moldy  crusts  of  ages! 

"Still  art  thou  mute?   Perchance  it  is  the  best 
That  life's  past  glories  visit  not  these  eyes, 

That  Heaven  in  mercy  vexeth  not  our  rest 
With  visions  of  the  splendors  of, the  skies! 

"Yet  let  me  thank  thee  for  the  priceless  Word, 
The  message  all  unconscious  thou  has  brought, 

Divinest  Psyche,  Angel  of  the  Lord, 
Which  in  his  higher  wisdom  he  hath  wrought." 


THE  SPIRITUAL  UNIVERSE. 

The  solar-planetary  systems  that  fill  all  space  in  in- 
finite numbers  are  mizo-cosms ;  and  individual  \yorlds 
are  but  mega-cosms  in  this  vast  infinite,  magnificent 
and  infinitely  glorious  panorama  of  the  worlds  and 

128 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

their  sublime  inter-planetary  relations  and  uses,  which 
they  sustain  to  each  other  in  the  life  of  all  things. 

The  universes,  philosophically  and  spiritually  con- 
sidered, are  nerved,  muscled,  ligamented  throughout, 
the  only  portions  that  we  can  behold  with  our  natural 
eyes  being  the  osseous  system,  or  the  material  worlds, 
which  form  the  bases  of  the  various  world  systems — 
the  ''footstools"  of  the  Gods  {"Heaven  is  my  throne- 
The  Earth  is  my  footstool,'*  saith  Jehovah. 

These  marvellous  parallelisms,  analogies  and  corre- 
spondences in  the  constitution  of  all  things  are  not 
only  wonderful,  unutterably  glorious,  but  they  are  won- 
derfully helpful  to  the  higher  mtelligences  in  their 
work  of  teaching  the  laws,  or  modes  of  action  and  of 
being  of  the  various  universes  to  the  planetary  boys 
and  men !  They  form  an  easy  line  of  ascent  from  par- 
ticulars and  details  and  into  generals  and  universals. 

They  present  the  laws  to  the  infant  as  well  as  the 
more  adult  spiritual  man  of  the  lower  worlds  in  an  in- 
finite panorama,  beautiful  object  lessons  that  carry  for- 
ward and  upward  the  young  spiritual  mind  in  a  won- 
derful way ! 

As  soon  as  man  has  acquired  sufficient  strength  and 
clearness  of  vision  to  enable  him  to  put  aside  his  Earth 
goggles,  which  were  given  him  by  the  Creator  to  enable 
him  to  more  easily  endure  the  too  dazzling  rays  of  the 
great  intense  spiritual  sun,  he  will  open  his  spiritual 
eyes  upon  a  spiritual  universe  so  magnificently  and  sub- 
limely glorious  that  his  soul  will  be  filled  with  transport 
at  the  wondrous  scene  that  will  greet  his  astonished 
sight. 

In  the  evolution  of  this  wonderful  subject  we  have 
to  consider  man  in  his  social  and  spiritual  relations  to 
his  kind.  In  the  study  of  these  very  important  rela- 
tions we  are  much  aided  by  the  Master  in  some  of  the 
juvenile  lessons  in  spiritual  things  which  he  gave  to  his 
disciples  and  to  the  world  in  his  discourses  to  them 
not  long  before  his  crucifixion.  "Jesus  said  unto  them, 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  ye  have  no  life  in  you.    Whoso  eateth 

129 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS.      . 

my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal  life:  and 
I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day"     .     .    . 

"He  that  eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood 
dwelleth  in  me  and  I  in  him/* 

Christ  in  thus  informing  the  Jews,  including  his  own 
disciples,  that  he  was  the  "bread  that  came  down,  yea 
that  Cometh  down  from  heaven,"  struck  a  vast  and 
vital  and  eternal  principle  that  relates  and  governs  all 
the  world.  Spiritual,  natural,  material,  human — all  of 
them — a  divine  focal  principle  that  concerns  all  men, 
with  this  difference  concerning  Jesus,  that  he  was  (is) 
a  very  advanced  spirit  with  many  re-incarnations  be- 
hind him,  and  for  that  reason  had  been  chosen  by  the 
Fatherhood  as  a  special  minister  plenipotentiary  clothed 
with  full  powers  as  teacher  and  exemplar,  to  become 
the  most  central  force  about  which  would  focalize  and 
crystalize  the  forces  of  civilization  itself. 

The  nature  of  these  forces  of  which  the  Master 
speaks  are  not  difficult  to  comprehend  perhaps  if  one 
can  put  off  his  church  prejudices  and  other  precon- 
ceptions too  old  for  his  eyes  and  blur  the  vision. 

"And  virtue  went  out  of  him  and  healed  them  all. 
It  was  by  means  of  this  personal  divine  "virtue"  that 
Christ  went  forth  and  with  his  mighty  will  power  to 
heal  the  multitudes  of  the  sick  that  came  to  him  foi| 
healing.  It  also  enabled  Paul  and  Peter  to  raise  the 
dead  as  Christ  had  done,  as  we  have  elsewhere  seen  in 
another  chapter,  and  which  has  also  enabled  modern 
healers  to  perform  similar  wonderful  works. 

Yes,  love  is  the  "blood"  of  the  spiritual  man  and 
"Hesh"  is  the  "bread"  of  the  spiritual  man  to  which 
Jesus  makes  allusion  in  his  discourse  to  the  Jews  (John 
vi,  51-58).  They  form  the  personal  magnetisms  of 
all  men  according  to  their  degree  and  kind — ^their 
growth  and  advancement  in  spiritual  things.  "For  my 
flesh  is  meat  indeed  and  my  blood  is  drinh  indeed." 
No  one  who  can  comprehend  a  tithe  even  of  the  vast 
and  sublime  truths — the  spiritual  pearls  of  thought  to 
which  the  beloved  one  gave  utterance  during  his  earth- 
ly ministrations,  but  will  admit  that  the  "bread"  and 
the  "blood"  that  were  elaborated  in  his  spiritual  sys- 

130 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

tern  were  standard  high,  and  sufficiently  true,  pure  and 
commanding  to  modify  and  transform  the  other  great 
reHgions  of  the  world  and  to  create  a  religion  broad 
enough  and  big  enough  to  supply  ample  standing  room 
and  acting  room  for  every  ''Son  of  man,"  and  a  spir- 
itual cuisine  large  enough  and  free  enough  to  allow 
every  son  of  God  to  choose  his  own  foods  without  let, 
hindrance  or  dictation  from  any  source  whatsoever. 

Our  personal  prescription  of  the  foods  and  drinks  of 
others  grows  too  often  and  to  much  out  of  our  own 
personal  experiences  and  necessities ;  and  while  it  may 
be  perfectly  harmless,  grateful  and  wholesome  for  us, 
may  be  deleterious  to  others.  This  precious  conserva- 
tive law  extends  to  all  the  worlds,  both  material  and 
spiritual,  but  is  more  potent  in  the  latter  than  in  the 
former,  and  more  potent  and  active  as  one  ascends 
from  lower  into  higher  degrees  of  the  spiritual  and 
celestial  life  of  man.  Hence  the  severity  with  which 
Jesus  spoke  of  the  course  pursued  by  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  and  all  others  who  "compass  sea  and  land 
to  make  a  single  proselyte,  who,  when  he  is  made,  be- 
comes twofold  more  a  child  of  hell  than  themselves." 
For  by  so  doing  they  do  not  subjugate  his  errors  but 
his  honesty,  and  turn  him  over  to  the  devil  of  evil  ways 
and  practices,  for  the  eternal  God  can  do  nothing  for 
a  rascal — can  build  very  little  that  is  great  or  good 
upon  a  rogue. 

But  we  must  consider  these  divine,  spiritual,  organic 
principles  in  a  still  higher  light.  Says  the  man  Jesus: 
"He  that  eatet-h  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  dwell- 
eth  in  me  and  I  in  him."  It  is  a  vital  principle  extend- 
ing to  and  intimately  relating  to  all  cognate  souls 
everywhere  in  all  worlds.  It  is  the  law  and  the  force 
that  unites  and  determines  the  destinies  of  all  souls, 
and  more  especially  those  which  concern  the  relations 
of  the  true  man  and  true  woman.  The  spiritual  plane- 
tary man  or  mega-cosm  of  our  little  world  is  made  up 
of  an  almost  infinity  of  spiritual  beings,  men  and  wo- 
men, each  of  whom  performs  some  function  or  use 
greater  or  less  in  the  "divine  humanity"  or  planetary 
man.    These  relationships  do  not  give  themselves  ex- 

131 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

pression  in  mere  words  and  symbolisms.  But  chiefly 
in  the  form  of  most  beautiful  nerves  and  ligaments  that 
unite  the  wise  and  the  good — indeed  they  are  beautiful 
or  ugly  according  to  the  character  of  those  united. 

The  spiritual  vision  of  the  writer  was  at  one  time 
sufficiently  opened  to  witness  an  example  of  this  won- 
derful relation  between  two  persons,  one  of  whom  was 
a  healer,  A  broad,  bright,  beautiful  golden  band  ap- 
peared to  come  forth  from  the  region  of  the  solar 
plexus  of  the  physician  and  to  extend  across  the  inter- 
lying  space — some  thirty  feet  or  more  distant — and 
to  enter  the  body  of  the  patient  in  the  corresponding 
region.  One  of  the  things  connected  with  the  beautiful 
vision  was  the  fact  that  this  spiritual  golden  band,  that, 
though  broad,  seemed  to  be  no  heavier  than  the  lightest 
gossamer,  appeared  to  have  material  weight  as  it  hung 
suspended  between  the  two  persons  in  a  long,  light 
curve  downwards  toward  the  earth  or  floor. 

This  example,  if  we  consider  it  attentively,  and  with- 
out prejudice,  may  serve  to  explain  much  that  has 
hitherto  been  regarded  as  inexplicable  in  the  occult  or 
spiritual  life  of  man.  The  writer  will  give  an  example 
in  point. 

He  was  well  acquainted  with  an  intelligent  physician 
who  had  two  brothers  that  were  twins.  If  one  of  these 
were  taken  ill  in  any  way,  the  other,  though  living 
hundreds  of  miles  away,  was  invariably  attacked  in  the 
same  way.  This  marvellous  divine  unity  under  spirit- 
ual conditions  extends  to  the  whole  body  of  the  divine 
humanity  in  greater  or  less  degree  and  potencies,  and 
the  more  spiritually  minded  and  intelligent  one  may  be 
the  more  he  is  lifted  up  to  a  plane  where  he  becomes 
conscious  of  its  truth. 

These  spiritual  foods  of  which  Christ  speaks  not 
only  relate  all  souls  to  him  who  love  him,  and  in  a  very 
vital  way  as  he  has  stated,  but  they  are  like  and  similar 
to  those  which  we  are  considering  in  connection  with 
the  entire  body  of  the  spiritual  planetary  man.  These 
sublime  forces  are  not  only  the  nerves  and  the  liga- 
ments that  unite  and  bind  in  one  all  the  elements  of  the 
[Divine  Man;  they  are  also  a  great  part  of  the  goods 

133 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

upon  which  he  subsists  both  physically  and  spiritually. 
Persons  have  been  known  to  subsist  for  years  upon  the 
spiritual  forces  which  they  draw  from  their  friends 
around  them  in  bodily  presence  and  from  those  im- 
parted to  them  by  the  Angelic  Societies  in  the  spiritual 
world  to  which  they  are  affinitively  related  while  still 
in  this  life. 

"I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of,"  said  Jesus 
to  his  disciples  on  a  certain  occasion. 

As  foods  for  both  the  material  and  the  spiritual 
man  these  personal  forces  that  are  derived  from  the 
material  worlds  and  their  atmospheres  and  from  the 
spiritual  worlds  and  their  atmospheres,  and  are  after- 
ward digested,  elaborated,  refined  and  eaten^  both  by 
the  man  himself,  but  chiefly  by  his  friends — these  are 
the  chief  attractions  and  foods  that  drew  man  and 
woman  together  in  the  social,  spiritual  and  conjugal 
relations,  and  are  the  causes  and  influences  that  render 
all  these  relations  so  delightful  and  intoxicating  to 
human  souls.  They  eat  one  another,  but  functionally 
and  not  in  any  harmful,  but  beneficent  way — as  stated 
by  the  beloved  Christ.  "For  my  flesh  is  meat  indeed 
and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed."  "Whoso  eateth  my 
flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal  life."  Yes, 
it  is  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  individual  man  is  nerved, 
ligamented  and  co-muscled  even  with  his  fellow  and 
through  him  with  every  other  part  of  the  Divine  Hu- 
manity, and  is  thus  also  fed  from  its  divine  living 
fountains  of  life  universal,  that  he  becomes  eternalized 
and  lives  ultimately  among  and  by  the  Immortals. 

The  hand,  the  finger,  the  foot — every  cell  of  the 
many  millions  that  form  the  man — derive  their  ex- 
istence, subsistence  and  base  of  life  from  these  divine, 
precious  and  holy  relations  with  other  souls.  "Thanks 
to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live."  But  that 
which  doth  relate  man  most  potently  to  the  infinite 
life  and  accomplishes  most  to  eternize  and  infinitize 
the  whole  life  of  man,  are  the  relations  he  sustains,  and 
ever  must  sustain,  to  the  infinite  creative  sphere  which 
constitute  the  brain,  or  the  positive  pole  of  the  holy 
Divine  Humanity.    Cut  oflf  the  hand  or  finger  of  a  man 

133 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

and  it  is  immediately  dead.  And  the  forces  of  sur- 
rounding life  at  once  begin  the  work  of  disintegration 
and  death. 

In  like  manner  if  man  separates  himself  too  far  from 
the  vital  currents  that  are  forever  flowing  forth  from 
the  living  Brain  of  the  Divine  Being  to  impart  life, 
health  and  motion  to  all  his  worlds  and  universes,  he 
also  perishes,  and  is  found  no  more  in  the  ranks  of 
living  men  and  women.  And  this  he  can  do  if  he  so 
desires. 

Yes,  man  so  far  as  his  degree  of  advancement  in 
spiritual  things  will  admit,  is  totally  related  to  all  those 
societies  in  spirit  life  for  which  he  has  any  very  posi- 
tive attraction. 

For,  as  the  human  body  is  made  up  of  an  infinity  of 
cells  that  are  corelated  and  held  together  as  one  body, 
and  is  composed  of  manifold  organs,  functions  and 
uses,  as  has  been  ^shown  elsewhere,  so  likewise  the 
spiritual  worlds  are  made  up  of  innumerable  societies 
that  correspond  in  their  spiritual  relations  and  uses 
to  the  organs,  functions  and  services  that  are  per- 
formed by  the  manifold  membership  of  the  human 
body. 

And  this  is  true  not  only  of  the  great  universe  it- 
self in  all  its  compensatory  relations  with  its  worlds, 
systems  and  inferior  or  lower  universes,  but  it  extends 
all  the  way  down  to  the  terrestial  worlds  and  all  their 
containments,  where  are  found  the  earliest  involutions 
and  incarnations  of  spiritual  forms  in  material  forms. 
For  material  forms  are  only  the  dress  which  spirit 
forms  create  and  in  which  they  array  themselves,  as 
the  hand  in  the  glove  and  the  person  in  the  suit  or 
dress.  This  eternal  outflow  of  the  living  forces  of  the 
solar  spiritual  have  a  compensatory  inflow  that  come 
to  them  from  the  terrestrial  worlds  and  all  their  con- 
tainments. The  former  or  the  solar  spiritual  outflow  of 
the  spiritual  currents  and  forces  of  universal  life  and 
correspond  to  the  systematic  currents  of  the  arterial 
blood  in  the  human  system  and  their  outflow  and  cir- 
culation throughout  every  portion  of  the  human  body. 

The  latter,  or  compensatory  inflow  of  the  spiritual 

134 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

eternal  life  forces  of  the  universe  correspond  to  the 
venous  circulation  of  the  blood  and  other  fluids  of  the 
human  system.  For  these  are  corresponding  things 
of  the  Divine  Being. 


CONCERNING  SABBATH 


The  word  Sabbath  means  rest.  The  Jews  originally 
in  the  time  of  Moses  observed  three  forms  of  the  Sab- 
batic idea  or  principle: 

First — The  observance  of  every  seventh  day  as  a 
day  of  rest,  which  was  designed  more  especially  to 
give  the  laboring  man  a  period  of  rest  from  all  his 
ordinary  physical  labors,  having  for  its  object  a  two- 
fold purpose,  viz..  First,  rest  from  all  toil  and  business 
labors  for  the  refreshment  and  restoration  of  the  forces 
and  functions  of  the  entire  material  man ;  and,  Second, 
the  culture,  invigorating  growth  and  progress  of  the 
spiritual  man,  and  his  advancement  into  the  higher 
planes  and  degrees  in  the  life  of  the  spiritual  universe, 
which  is  the  present  and  ultimate  goal  whither  tendeth 
all  his  just  efforts  and  eternal  destinies. 

It  was  a  rest  of  every  seventh  day,  and  was  an  em- 
bodiment and  an  imitation  of  the  lunar  week  day  prin- 
ciple by  which  all  animals  and  plants  incubate  and 
menstruate,  and  which  if  not  properly  incorporated 
into  the  culture  of  the  Flora  and  the  Fauna  of  man  in 
the  future  as  it  hath  not  been  in  the  past,  hath  been 
among  the  prolific  and  woful  causes  of  the  universal 
breeding  of  predatory  microbes  in  man,  animal  and 
plant  the  world  over. 

We  are  moving  too  fast.  We  must  slow  up  a  great 
deal  or  else  the  ugly  consequences  soon  or  late  will 
result  in  moribund  relations  and  a  dying  world. 

The  Second  form  of  the  Sabbatic  law,  or  principle, 
as  prescribed  by  Jehovah  and  adopted  by  Moses,  was  a 
Sabbath  of  years — and  made  every  seventh  year  a 

135 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

year  of  "rest  to  the  land."  "Six  years  shalt  thou  sow 
thy  field  and  six  years  thou  shalt  prune  thy  vineyard 
and  gather  in  the  fruit  thereof — but  the  seventh  year 
shall  be  a  sabbath  of  rest  unto  the  land.  A  Sabbath 
for  the  Lord;  thou  shalt  neither  sow  thy  field  nor 
prune  thy  vineyard.' 

It  was  not  only  a  year  of  "rest  to  the  land,"  but  also 
became  a  whole  year  of  rest  to  man  and  maid  of  the 
toiling  classes  whose  worn  and  weary  bodies  have  be- 
come sick  and  faint,  often  insane,  from  the  fearful 
burdens  imposed  upon  them  by  their  unholy  and  nn- 
brotherly  brethren  in  the  flesh. 

The  almighty,  all-wise  Father  of  the  great  family  of 
man  hath  unlocked  the  vast  storehouse  of  labor-sav- 
ing machinery  to  the  world  to  enable  man  to  enjoy 
greater  and  more  perfect  season  of  rest  and  social, 
spiritual  and  material  recreation  from  the  harsh  and 
grinding  effects  of  labor  upon  the  man  of  toil.  But 
the  greater  portion  of  those  who  have  the  control  of  it. 
instead  of  applying  it  to  the  great,  wise  and  noble  uses 
for  which  it  is  designed  by  the  eternal  divine  Provi- 
dence to  subserve,  viz. :  to  enable  them  to  have  the 
means  and  the  leisure  to  cultivate  their  own  nobler 
and  better  natures  and  their  families  and  dependents, 
they  are  making  use  of  these  means  which  the  ternal 
God  hath  given  them  to  pile  up  vast  mountains  of  the 
wealth  of  which  they  have  robbed  the  people  and  im- 
posed upon  them  as  vast  burdens  too  intolerable  to  be 
borne. 

'  The  third  form  of  the  Sabbatic  law  or  principle  is 
the  year  of  the  jubilee,  of  the  Hffieth  year.  This  is  the 
greatest  and  the  most  benign  of  all  the  laws  ever 
hitherto  devised  for  the  nationalization  of  the  land  to 
prevent  its  monopoly  by  the  rich  and  to  prevent  its 
alienation  from  the  possession  and  uses  of  the  people 
and  their  families.  But  government  will — and  that, 
too,  ere  long — assume  eminent  domain  over  all  the 
national  wealth  of  the  world  and  will  forevei  hold  them 
in  trust  for  the  uses  and  interests  of  the  zvhole  people, 
and  will  never  more  allow  them  to  be  alienated  from 
the  people  in  the  future  in  any  manner  or  degree 

136 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

whatsoever.  In  so  doing  the  government  will  repre- 
sent the  real  proprietors  of  the  land  and  other  natural 
wealth  of  the  world,  and  will  hold  it  in  trust  in  be- 
half of  the  whole  people — for  the  present  race  of 
man. 

This  is  the  greatest  and  the  most  benign  of  all  the 
agrarian  laws  that  have  ever  been  devised  for  the 
nationalization  of  the  land  to  prevent  its  monopoly 
by  the  rich  and  powerful,  and  its  alienation  from  the 
possession  and  uses  of  the  people.  But  when  political 
government  has  become  more  perfect — when  it  has  be- 
come a  "government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people,"  there  will  come  a  time,  and  one  not  far 
hence,  when  all  individual  proprietary  rights  will  re- 
vert to  the  central  governments  of  the  several  peoples 
of  the  world  to  be  held  in  trust  for  their  highest  in- 
terests and  uses. 

By  so  doing,  earthly  governments  will  be  made  to 
represent  more  perfectly  the  real  and  original  spiritual 
proprietors  and  will  better  carry  out  their  plans  and 
purposes  in  the  proper  disposition  of  the  natural  wealth 
of  the  world — to  confer  titles  upon  it. 

As  soon,  however,  as  well  established  popular  gov- 
ernments have  been  created  by  intelligent  and  well 
ordered  peoples,  these  governments  will  assume  the 
control  and  trusteeship  of  all  the  public  wealth  m  their 
several  countries  of  the  world,  in  the  name  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  original  proprietors,  and  in  behalf  ot 
the  whole  people.  For,  say  what  we  may  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  the  fact  will  remain  that 
man  as  we  know  him  here  m  the  flesh  is  not  the  origi- 
nal creator  and  owner  of  the  worlds  and  their  vast 
containments  of  natural  wealth — although  he  is  at 
present  making  some  very  fine  improvements  upon 
the  property.  But  that,  as  the  Scripture  teaches  and 
the  higher  intelligences  of  the  spiritual  afiirm,  (the 
material  worlds  and  their  belongings)  are  the  work 
of  advanced  men  living  In  the  spiritual  world — which 
is  nothing  more  or  less,  practically  considered,  than 
a  reaffirmation  of  the  statement  of  John  in  his  gos- 
pel:— **A11  things  were   made  by   Him — ^Jesus — and 

^Z7 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

without  him  was  not  anything  made  that  was  made." 

But  Jesus  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  man, 
one  of  these  advanced  men  who  are  the  doers  of  the 
Work  in  the  higher  departments  of  the  labors  of 
man  in  the  spiritual  worlds  in  proper  connection  and 
in  relation  with  the  material  worlds.  John  was  so 
deeply  impressed  at  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of 
these  angelic  men  of  the  spiritual  world  that  he  fell 
down  at  his  feet  to  worship  the  angel  that  showed 
these  wonderful  things.  But  is  instantly  rebuked  by 
the  angel: — "See  thou  do  it  not.  I  am  thy  fellow 
servant,  and  of  thy  brethern  that  have  the  testimony  of 
Jesus : — Worship  God." 

The  prophet  Daniel  manifested  a  like  spirit  in  the 
presence  of  these  more  advanced  men  in  spirit  life 
who  could  shut  the  mouths  of  lions,  enable  men  to 
walk  in  the  midst  of  the  fiery  furnace  without  the 
slightest  injury  done  to  clothing  or  person  though 
heated  to  a  very  wonderful  degree. 

In  regard  to  the  Sabbatic  year  as  a  year  of  rest 
both  to  the  land  and  to  people,  it  is  by  no  means  an 
improbability  that  w^en  hum.an  life  has  become  more 
enlightened  and  advanced;  has  less  of  the  tiger  and 
more  of  the  characteristics  of  the  lamb;  when  ma- 
chinery has  taken  the  "burden  from  the  shoulders 
of  all  men,"  and  man  has  made  the  conquest  of  the 
air  as  well  as  sea  and  land,  and  no  man  requires  to 
give  more  time  to  the  social  and  the  intellectual  uses 
of  his  material  man,  it  may  be  that  he  will  require 
an  occasional  whole  year  of  rest  both  for  the  uses 
of  the  land,  but  more  especially  in  his  own  behalf,  as 
a  somewhat  protracted  period  of  rest  and  relaxation 
of  the  whole  man  in  order  to  promote  those  com- 
pensatory processes  in  his  physique  that  will  maintain 
his  system  at  par.  Man  is  now  just  entering  upon 
a  period  in  his  history  in  some  respects  the  most  re- 
markable by  far  of  all  the  chapters  in  the  past  history 
of  the  race,  written  or  unwritten. 

Like  some  ancient  ruined  castle  that  has  been  the 
home  and  safeguard  of  its  people  for  many  a  mil- 
lennium of  years  but  has  at  last  become  so  delapidated 

138 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

and  contracted  for  its  growing  family  as  to  compel  the 
owner  to  remove  it  entirely  to  make  room  for  the  new 
and  spacious  palatial  home  that  is  to  take  its  place, 
in  like  manner  and  for  like  reasons  the  old  civilization 
which  has  been  the  home  and  the  safeguard  of  the 
whole  human  family,  lo,  these  thousands  of  years, 
is  at  last  become  so  delapidated  and  destroyed  by  time 
and  weather,  so  far  outworn  and  outgrown  its  uses, 
that  the  wreckers  are  now  already  busy  at  their  work 
of  pulling  down  the  ancient  edifice  to  make  ample 
room  for  the  new.  The  next  fifteen  to  twenty  years, 
or  more,  perhaps,  will  be  given  by  the  Higher  Powers 
to  the  destruction  and  removal  of  the  wreckage  of 
this  ancient  building  and  to  prepare  for  the  manifold 
generation  that  are  to  come.  As  it  has  been  well  said 
of  it  in  the  Bible,  that  grandest,  noblest  of  all  the 
books  ever  given  to  man  by  his  teachers  in  spirit  life : — 
"And  I  saw  a  new  heavens — a  new  civilisation — and  a 
new  earth,  for  the  old  heavens  and  the  old  earth  were 
passed  away  and  there  was  no  more  sea" — no  more 
unhappy  peoples  in  a  state  of  perpetual  unrest  and 
agitation  like  the  sea  waves. 

To  return  to  our  Sabbatic  year.  The  old  Greeks 
and  Romans  set  aside  every  fourth  year  as  a  year  of 
mental  and  physical  recreation  and  social  enjoyment, 
basing  their  rebuilding  of  the  whole  man  upon  the 
animal  plane  chiefly  though  not  entirely.  With  the 
new  civilization  that  is  soon  destined  under  divine 
Providence  to  take  the  place  of  the  old,  both  the 
mental  and  the  material  as  well  as  the  social  and  the 
spiritual  man,  should  and  likely  will,  receive  a  nearly, 
if  not  equal  attention.  For  the  chief  object  of  society 
in  the  education  of  youth  should  be  to  form  a  system 
of  educational  training  for  them  that  shall  tend  to 
remove  the  eccentricities  and  inequalities  of  human 
life  to  an  extent  and  degree  sufficient  to  enable  all 
classes  to  harmonize  perfectly,  but  no  farther. 

To  go  beyond  that  in  our  efforts  to  educate  is  to 
interfere  with  the  rights  of  the  individual  and  inflict 
a  serious  injury  upon  him,  as  do  all  our  sectarian  and 
other  partial  systems  for  educating  the  young. 

139 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

The  time  is  but  little  distant  now  when  man  shall 
be  called  to  witness  a  wonderful  scene  taking  place 
upon  dear  old  mother  earth.  He  will  not  only  behold 
every  sea,  lake,  river,  ocean,  white  with  the  commercial 
fleets  of  all  nations;  the  continents  and  large  islands 
of  the  globe  gridironed  with  railways  and  other  roads ; 
all  of  them,  both  trains  and  fleets,  bearing  happy  mill- 
ions daily  to  and  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe ;  but, 
when  he  lifts  his  eyes  to  the  heavens,  he  shall  behold 
a  new  and  more  glorious  spectacle.  He  will  see  the 
very  heavens  alive  with  the  airships  of  the  God  men 
who  have  at  last  made  the  conquest  of  sea,  sky  and 
land,  and  now  seem  likely  to  scale  the  higher  heavens 
to  discover  and  capture  the  palaces  of  Jupiter  and  his 
gods. 

For  the  "whole  boundless  universe"  is  man's  and 
neither  man,  God  nor  devil  hath  any  right  to  withhold 
from  him  those  higher  knowledges  upon  which  he 
''lives,  moves  and  hath  his  being." 

We  are  living  too  fast.  We  must  moderate  our 
pace  as  a  people,  or  we  shall  ere  many  generations 
breed  monkeys  rather  than  men — slow  down! 

The  Sabbath,  when  it  is  properly  observed  and  un- 
derstood, will  be  seen  and  recognized  as  a  function  of 
universal  life  and  not  created  by  planetry  man  or  his 
laws.  The  birds  incubate  a  certain  number  of  weeks, 
and  the  higher  animals — man  and  beast — both  men- 
struate and  gestate  in  a  similar  way  and  the  law  ex- 
tends itself  even  into  the  vegetable  realm,  and  plants 
also  menstruate  in  harmony  with  this  universal  law 
established  by  the  Creator  through  the  attractions 
and  other  influences  of  our  lunar  planet. 

We  have  seen  the  female  eucalyptus  nearly  cover 
the  ground  beneath  it  with  what  appeared  to  be  water, 
while  that  under  the  male  trees  was  perfectly  dry. 
Even  the  law  that  is  subserved  by  planting  at  certain 
periods  of  the  lunar  influence,  is  a  very  important 
one,  as  those  who  test  it  by  proper  experiment  will 
discover.    We  speak  from  experience. 

Let  those  laugh  who  will.  Yes,  the  seventh  day  or 
Sabbath  is  an  important  function  in  all  life,  both  ani- 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

mai  and  plant,  and  this  is  especially  so  with  man. 
If  the  rational  be  so  perfectly  conjoined  with  the 
spiritual  the  affectional  and  the  natural  understand- 
ings they  form  that  wonderful  feminine  faculty 
that  is  properly  termed  "faith"  and  which  is  the  most 
subtle,  refined  and  penetrative  of  all  the  human  facul- 
ties and  which  the  great  metaphysician  Emanuel 
Kant  characterized  as  the  pure  Reason,  or  '^der  reinen 
vernuhty 

This  most  important  function  in  the  intellectual  life 
of  man  and  of  woman,  but  of  which  woman  possesses 
by  far  the  most,  is,  as  we  have  already  stated,  the  most 
active  and  farseeing  in  the  whole  range  of  the  human 
faculties,  though  woman  has  the  largest  share.  The 
great  skeptic  and  materialist,  however,  the  Hon. 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  denounced  it  as  a  vile  compound 
of  bigotry  and  superstition. 

Paul  has  given  the  best  definition,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
when  he  characterized  it  as  "The  evidence  of  things 
not  seen"  Yes,  dim  as  the  light  has  been  from  the 
density  of  the  veil  through  which  it  comes  to  man,  it 
has  been  through  long  ages  the  greatest  source  of  light, 
hope  and  comfort  to  ignorant  and  erring  man  during 
his  long  period  of  germination  and  gestation  in  the 
heart  of  the  spiritual  earth. 


NO  MISSING  LINKS. 

In  charting  the  great  planet,  earth,  for  the  distri- 
bution of  its  manifold  functions  and  forms  of  life, 
the  Supreme  Architect  first  mapped  out  the  basic 
forces  of  civilization  in  the  very  structure  of  the 
living  world  itself,  both  in  its  geological  and  in  its 
geographical  conditions  and  elements  for  the  evolu- 
tion of  life  upon  it. 

It  is  this  important  fact  that  so  intimately  con- 
cerns the  development  of  the  floral  and  the  fauna! 

141 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  TflE  KOSMOS. 

life-forms  of  the  planet,  that  has  misled  the  material- 
istic philosopher  in  studying  the  forces  as  well  as 
ithe  processes  by  which  creative  progress  has  been 
carried  on.  For  every  degree  of  longitude  and  lati- 
tude is  not  only  a  material  idea,  but  also  a  spiritual 
one.  In  the  distribution  of  the  climates,  the  soils, 
the  rocks,  the  waters,  and  the  forms  of  the  continents, 
they  have  all  been  arranged  by  the  Creative  Wis- 
doms in  a  way  to  co-operate  with  the  cosmic  world- 
building  forces,  to  aid  them  in  the  evolution  of  all 
created  life  forms.  In  crossing  the  continent  from 
the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the  Pacific  Coast  region, 
one  is  struck  with  the  transformations  in  form  and 
color  that  have  taken  place  in  his  old  familiar  friends 
— the  robin,  the  dove,  the  squirrel  and  others  of  his 
former  acquaintances,  among  b^<^h  animals  and 
plants. 

Originally  the  same,  the  Creative  Intelligence 
found  different  climatic  foods  and  forces,  different 
tools  to  work  with,  and  as  creation  delights  in  va- 
riety it  has  in  many  cases  supplied  us  with  vari- 
tones  in  place  of  monotones.  They  are  pict»^es  im- 
pressed upon  the  pages  of  the  great  Book  of  Nature 
by  its  Great  Author.  For  all  things  bear  the  stamp 
of  His  intelligence  and  His  energies  expressed  in 
harmonious  and  mathematical  forms. 

This  differentiating  energy  of  the  creative  func- 
tions is  not  only  displayed  in  a  very  remarkable 
manner  in  the  evolution  of  the  lower  life  fornis  of 
our  world,  but  formulates  itself  in  an  even  more 
characteristic  way  in  the  higher  forms  of  the  life  of 
man. 

Take  our  own  people  as  an  example  in  point.  It 
is  possible  for  an  expert  in  American  biology  to  go 
into  an  assembly  of  a  thousand  persons  of  American 
birth  and  descent  for  several  generations,  all  of  them 
strangers  to  himself,  and  from  every  part  of  the 
Union,  and  determine  the  state  in  which  each  one  of 
them  was  born  and  bred,  and  make  few  mistakes. 

Of  a  truth  these  local  transformations,  so  marked 
in  their  character,  are  not  due  wholly  to  local  causes, 

142 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

not  yet  to  cosmic  forces,  but  to  Spiritual  causes  also 
in  the  incarnations  from  the  Spiritual  world. 

The  various  terrestrial  life  forms  in  turn  supply, 
the  bases  for  the  incarnations  that  come  from  the 
various  races,  sub-races  and  arch-races  of  the  An- 
gelic forms  of  Spirit  Life. 

From  the  summits  of  existence  to  the  lowest 
depths  of  the  chain  of  being  there  are  no  "missing 
links,"  save  the  imperfection  of  man's  knowledge. 
Not  by  "insensible  gradations"  hath  the  Divine 
Architect  wrought  out  the  manifold  life  forms,  in 
which  "He  lives  and  moves  and  hath  His  being." 
But  in  vast  cycles  and  by  leaps  and  bounds  hath  the 
creative  processes  been  accomplished. 

Not  by  post-uterine  means  and  methods,  nor  dur- 
ing extra-uterine  states  and  conditions,  save,  as  has 
been  already  stated,  but  by  and  during  intra-uterine 
forms  and  modes  of  existence  have  those  important 
transformations  been  effected  that  we  term  species, 
genera,  etc. 

And  this  statement  of  the  Divine  law  of  creative, 
progressive  evolution  is  in  practical  harmony  with 
the  views  of  Agassiz,  Cuvier  and  Liebig — the  great- 
est of  the  world's  comparative  anatomists  and 
scientists. 

Says  Prof.  Agassiz:  "All  domesticated  animals 
and  cultivated  plants  are  traceable  to  distant 
species." 

And  the  domesticated  pigeons  which  supply  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  illustrations  are,  notwith- 
standing their  great  diversity  under  special  treat- 
ment, no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  truth  is  our 
domesticated  animals,  with  all  their  breeds  and  va- 
rieties, have  never  been  traced  back  to  anything  but 
their  own  species.  Nor  have  artificial  varieties  so 
far  as  we  know  failed  to  revert  to  the  wild  stock 
when  left  to  themselves. 

As  we  have  already  seen  in  previous  numbers 
Judea,  Greece,  Rome,  India,  have  performed  very 
important  parts  in  the  evolution  of  the  literal  forms 
of  the  Divine  Word.    And  this  they  have  done  and 

143  i 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

do  because  as  nations  they  represent  the  Divine 
Word  in  its  various  cosmic  forms.  India  evolved 
the  idea  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  but  upon  class 
and  caste  lines.  But  these  fraternal  caste  lines  in-' 
eluded  within  them  even  the  animal  world  beneath  him. 

But  to  Judea  was  assigned  the  very  important 
office  of  evolving  the  more  perfect  religion  of  Chris- 
tianity, whose  central  idea  is  the  Divinity  and  the 
Divine  Unity  of  all  life.  It  is  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

These  divinely  grand  conceptions  of  man  and  of 
his  eternal  relations  to  the  Divine  Being  have  hith- 
erto been  little  more  to  the  world  in  practice  than  an 
ideality,  a  golden  dream  that  has  haunted  man's 
imagination  and  inspired  him  with  hope  during  the 
long  dark  ages  that  have  elapsed  since  the  man  of 
sorrows. 

But  the  signs  of  the  times  are  full  of  great  prom- 
ise. The  old  civilization  is  swiftly  approaching  its 
end,  and  Socialism,  the  "New  Heavens  and  the  New 
Earth,  wherein  dwelleth  Righteousness"  will  shortly 
take  its  place. 

While  all  the  nations  are  destined  to  sustain  im- 
portant uses,  and  functions  in  the  new  world's  civ- 
ilization— the  Divine  Cosmic  Man — two  of  them  will 
play  very  important  parts  in  it. 

They  are  the  two  great  national,  or  rather,  racial 
movements  of  combined  nationalities,  we  term 
Saxon  and  Slavon — destined  to  divide  between  them 
the  empire  of  the  world. 

To  one  of  them  has  been  committed  the  sublime 
task  and  office  of  evolving  and  imparting  to  man- 
kind the  great  institutions  of  Civil  and  Religious 
Liberty  in  their  more  perfect  forms. 

Aside  from  these  peoples  who  speak  the  English 
tongue,  no  nation  has  as  yet  shown  itself  capable  of 
self-government,  with  universal  tolerance  of  relig- 
ious opinions. 

The  Slavon  is  the  dual  feminine  complement  of 
the  Saxon,  and  will  ultimately  present  to  the  world 
a  vast  concourse  of  peoples  and  nations  whose  in- 

144 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

stitutions  have  been  wrought  out  on  purely  sociahs- 
tic  Hnes.  The  twain  constitute  the  head  races  of 
the  world. 

They  are  symmetrical  halves  of  the  Divine  Hu- 
manity, and  in  the  evolution  of  its  institutions  they 
represent  respectively  Wisdom  and  ,  Love.  Each 
wing  of  the  Divine  Humanity  has  received  its  own 
special  office  and  function  in  the  affairs  of  mankind 
at  the  hands  of  the  Divine  Architect  and  will  yet 
work  out  its  manifest  destiny  in  an  integral  and 
peaceful  jelation  to  all  other  nations,  empires  and 
races  in  the  bosom  of  the  great  holy,  divine  Univer- 
sal Republic. 

There  is  no  need  of  heat,  anger  or  interference 
between  these  two  great  movements  on  the  planetary 
theater  of  time.  Each  one  has  its  own  "metes  and 
bounds"  assigned  to  it,  geographical  and  other, 
which  neither  will  be  permitted  by  the  higher 
powers  to  finally  transcend. 

In  harmonizing  and  otherwise  preparing  the  great 
nationalities  of  the  world  for  the  higher  civilization, 
the  various  world  religions  will  still  play  a  very  impor- 
tant part.  For  religion  is  the  basis  of  philosophy 
and  of  science  and  the  central  building-force  of  civ- 
ilization itself. 

Of  all  these  religions  Christianity  is  chief,  and  as 
such  will  supply  to  the  other  religions  and  their 
peoples  those  vital  and  indispensable  principles  of 
Spiritual  and  metaphysiological  truth  in  which  these 
other  religions  of  the  world  are  deficient. 

Meanwhile  Christianity  itself  is  undergoing  a 
gradual  but  real  transformation.  Its  more  crude, 
literal,  theological  and  mythological  forms  of  truth 
are  giving  way  under  the  benign  rays  of  the  great 
Sun  of  Scientific  Truth,  and  its  more  occult  and  in- 
terior forms  of  truth  are  expanding  under  the  intel- 
ligent scrutiny  of  more  advanced  thinkers,  into  uni- 
versal truths,  principles  and  symbols. 

But  the  greatest,  grandest,  most  vital  of  all  these 
symbolical  truths,  as  disclosed  by  the  Master  in  his 
last,  great  address  as  delivered  to  His  disciples,  just 

145 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

before  His  death,  and  recorded  in  John's  gospel,  are 
yet  to  be  more  fully  disclosed  to  the  spiritual  under- 
standing of  man. 

They  relate  to  the  Social,  Spiritual  and  Metaphy- 
sical forms  of  the  Spiritual  man  which,  like  its 
cogener  and  similar,  the  material  man  is  not  a  mere 
formula  of  words  ingeniously  arranged,  but,  like  its 
material  counterpart,  is  a  tangible  concrete  entity  of 
living  forces. 

In  the  Social,  Divine,  Cosmic  Man,  or  Megacosm, 
the  individual  man  enters,  by  proper  faith  and  works, 
and  becomes  vitally  related  therein  to  his  fellow 
man  by  living  forces  as  potent  as  those  which  relate 
the  stars  to  each  other  in  the  realms  of  space. 

In  no  other  form  of  the  Living  Word,  ancient  or 
modern,  are  these  great  occult — yet  fast  becoming 
manifest — truths  concerning  the  metaphysiological 
forms  of  the  spiritual  body  of  man,  taught  with  so 
much  truth  and  distinctness,  as  they  have  been  in  the 
discourses  of  the  Christ,  as  recorded  in  John's  gos- 
pel. The  book  occupies  a  distinct  place  in  the  liter- 
ature and  philosophy  of  the  world. 

It  presents  to  the  mind  of  man  the  sublimest  pic- 
ture of  the  physiology  of  the  Spiritual  man  and  of 
his  relations  to  the  spiritual  universe,  to  be  found  in 
the  words  of  any  teacher,  ancient  or  modern. 
Through  the  spiritual  organs  and  functions  of  the 
Cosmic  or  Social  man,  he  inspires  the  interior  life 
forces  (atmospherea)  of  great  Nature-God-digests 
and  elaborates  them  within  the  cunning  interiors  of 
his  own  marvelous  being,  and  afterward  gives  them 
to  his  fellow  man  for  his  eating — "loves  and  wis- 
doms," Spiritual  magnetisms,  "bread  and  wine," 
"flesh  and  blood,"  "Except  ye  eat  of  the  flesh  of  the 
son  of  man  and  drink  his  blood — the  Cosmic  or  So- 
cial man — ye  have  no  life  in  you." 

But  saith  ignorance,  "How  can  this  man  give  us 
his  flesh  to  eat?" 

Yes,  mankind  are  beginning  to  understand  these 
great  interior  facts  in  the  life  of  the  Spiritual  man. 
He  is  becoming  Gnostic. 

146 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


THE  FOODS  OF  MAN  AND  THE  MOODS 

OF  MAN. 

Part  I. 

Homo  est  quid  est, 

Mann  ist  vas  er  isst. 

The  above  proverb :  "Man  is  what  he  eats,"  comes 
down  to  us  through  various  sources,  and  from  a 
venerable  past.  We  quote  it  as  it  shows  that  the  in- 
fluence exerted  upon  human  character  by  the  foods 
we  consume  are  so  manifest  that  reflecting-  men, 
everywhere,  and  in  every  age,  recognize  the  fact. 
But,  while  it  is  a  truth  of  great  and  vital  importance 
in  any  aspect  of  the  subject,  it  becomes  an  absolute 
and  all  potent  verity  only  when  we  take  into  the 
account  the  entire  range  of  the  foods  of  man — ma- 
terial, mental,  social,  spiritual,  celestial. 

This  demand  for  so  vast  a  variety  in  the  foods 
which  man  employs  in  the  creation  of  his  material 
and  spiritual  vestments  grows  out  of  an  imperative 
law  of  his  most  interior  being;  that  is,  an  absolute 
and  perfect  vital,  chemical  and  spiritual  affinity  and 
attraction  eternally  pre-established  between  man 
and  his  foods,  man  and  his  moods,  and  man  and  his 
bodies — temporal,  spiritual  and  eternal.  This  mar- 
velous ego  is  forever  at  work,  both  consciously  and 
unconsciously,  weaving  the  warp  and  woof  of  his 
foods  into  tissues  of  his  material  and  Celestial  gar- 
ments, so  perfectly  that  there  is  a  definite  and  ab- 
solute correlation  betwen  the  man  and  the  foods  he 
consumes,  and  the  living  vestures  in  which  he 
clothes  himself,  and  which  he  is  ever  obliged  to 
maintain  and  renew  against  the  disintegrating  and 
destructive  forces  of  the  Universe  within  and  with- 
out .  ' 

Man  not  only  selects  his  foods  rationally,  and  in 
harmony  with  an  interior  and  imperative  law,  so 

147 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

far  as  his  limited  cuisine  will  admit  but  these  foods 
have  a  direct  correspondence  not  only  with  his  in- 
terior conditions  and  requirements,  but  are  further- 
more in  alignment  with  his  differentiations  of  char- 
acter and  of  function  in  all  his  relations,  both  with 
the  social  and  with  the  cosmic  ego.  But  these  foods, 
after  they  have  passed  through  the  chemical  pro- 
cesses of  digestive  elaboration,  are  required  to  sub- 
mit to  the  elective  and  assimilative  attractions  and 
choice  of  the  manifold  organs  and  cellular  differen- 
tiations that  exist  in  so  complex  and  marvelous  an 
entity  as  in  the  human  body. 

Both  the  animal  and  the  spiritual  man  co-operate 
in  this  very  complex  function  of  the  choice  of  foods 
and  with  most  unerring  certainty,  where  proper 
foods  are  supplied — partly  by  the  dictate  of  reason, 
but  chiefly  as  an  interior  response  to  the  various 
cellular  attractions  for  all  those  delicate  and  differ- 
entiated elements  that  form  the  real  forces  that  en- 
ter, renew  and  perpetually  rebuild  the  terrestro — 
spiritual  body  and  all  its  modes  of  life  in  the  flesh. 
There  is  not  only  an  absolute  and  perfect  corre- 
spondence betwen  these  interior  forms  and  the  foods 
by  which  man  maintains  them,  but  there  is  even  a 
perfect  correlation  existing  between  the  Foods  of 
Man  and  the  Moods  of  Man. 

Buckle,  the  eminent  historian  of  Civilization,  at- 
tached so  vast  an  importance  to  the  foods  of  a  people, 
the  occupations  they  follow,  the  air  th^  breathe, 
their  climates,  habits  of  thought,  etc.,  that  he  under- 
took to  tell  the  end  of  a  nation  from  the  beginning. 
What  are  all  these  really  but  the  unconscious  foods 
of  a  people.  This  is  strikingly  true  even  were  the 
philosopher  to  confine  his  observations  upon  man- 
kind from  the  time  when  man  first  emerged  from  the 
animal  world  beneath  him — through  the  various  an- 
thropoidal  forms  by  which,  guided  by  the  Creative 
Wisdom,  he  made  his  ascent  out  of  the  vast  matrix 
of  Nature,  in  which  the  animal  man  was  conceived, 
gestated  and  born  into  Time. 
,     If  we  ascend  the  mighty  currents  of  his  existence 

V      ..      -.    .   .  ^48  , 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

and  consider  attentively  the  infinite  and  infinitely 
varied  foods,  forces  and  formulas  of  the  life  ele- 
ments— mineral,  vegetable,  animal  and  spiritual — ^by 
and  through  which  the  infinitely  complex  and  com- 
pound being  we  term  man  has  been  elaborated  and 
evolved  in  all  its  manifold  parts,  spiritual  as  well  as 
material,  we  shall  begin  to  comprehend  the  vastness, 
the*  magnificence,  and  the  grandeur  of  the  creative 
procedure;  and  also  the  marvelous  adaptability  of 
the  manifold  racial,  sub-racial,  national  and  even 
tribal  elements  of  mankind,  by  which  man  was  born 
into  time  and  world,  when  directed  by  the  Creative 
Wisdoms  to  work  out  the  vast  problems  of  the  per- 
fect functionation,  unitization  and  ultimate  harmon- 
ization of  all  these  seemingly  antagonistic  elements 
of  the  Divine  Humanity  into  the  Universal  Repub- 
lic and  the  Eternal  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

These  marvelously  differentiated  and  apparently 
hostile  elements  of  mankind,  as  we  find  them  in  the 
world  of  to-day,  are  but  the  rough  blocks  which, 
when  they  have  been  touched  and  polished  by  the 
Divine  finger,  shall  be  put  into  the  Living  Temple, 
which  will  form  the  perfected  Divine  Humanity — 
"within  which  they  shall  neither  hurt  nor  destroy  in 
all  my  holy  mountain!"  For  this  is  the  "Stone" — 
Democracy  or  the  rule  of  the  people — that  the  Seer, 
Daniel  saw  in  prophetic  vision,  "cut  out  of  the 
mountain — Monarchic  rule — without  hands,  that  be- 
came a  great  mountain  and  filled  the  whole  earth." 
It  is  the  Universal  Republic ! 

PartH. 

It  is  well  recognized  by  ethnologists  that  people 
differ  widely,  not  only  in  the  original  constitution 
which  they  derived  from  the  lower  animal  world, 
but  that  their  history,  civilization,  traits  of  charac- 
ter, as  well  as  their  moods  and  tenses  vary  greatly 
accordingly  as  they  live  in  valleys,  upon  mountains, 
on  islands,  in  the  interior  of  vast  continents,  in  for- 
ests, in  hilly  countries  or  in  desert  regions.    And  this 

149 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

is  what  we  should  expect,  as  climate,  soil,  water,  air, 
scenery,  together  with  the  peculiar  vegetal  and  ani- 
mal productions  of  these  various  localities  are  potent 
foods  in  the  formation  of  the  human  character,  ma- 
terial and  spiritual. 

In  truth,  every  degree  of  longitude  and  latitude  is 
an  idea  peculiar  to  itself,  and  impressed  upon  it  by 
its  own  corresponding  degrees  of  longitude  and  lati- 
tude in  the  spiritual  world ;  and  are  important  fac- 
tors in  the  revolution,  not  only  of  the  human  form 
and  mentality,  but  they  impress  themselves  with 
great  energy  upon  the  flora  and  the  fauna  of  these 
localities.  The  plants  and  animals  of  this  Coast  not 
only  vary  greatly  in  form  and  character  from  the 
same  or  similar  forms  of  life  east  of  the  Rockies,  but 
they  differ  greatly  in  their  habits  also. 

If  among  the  early  historic  races  we  look  for  the 
most  independent,  advanced  and  progressive  types 
of  mankind,  we  shall  find  them  in  the  mountain 
regions  of  the  world. 

Little  Switzerland  has  evolved  and  maintained 
the  republic  in  the  midst  of  her  eternal  snows  and 
mountain  solitudes  for  hundreds  of  years  before  the 
birth  of  our  own  great  republic.  And  little  Andora, 
a  much  smaller  people,  has  maintained  her  autonomy 
during  long  ages  amid  the  Pyrenees,  and  against 
her  potent  neighbors,  France  and  Spain. 

If,  however,  we  wish  to  find  races  of  mankind 
that  are  characterized  by  considerable  immobility  in 
progressive  times,  v/e  have  only  to  study  the  his- 
tory of  China,  Russia  and  other  peoples  inhabiting 
vast  plain  regions,  where  not  only  the  popular  mass, 
but  the  vastness  of  the  country  itself  help  men  to 
lose  their  individuality  and  personal  enterprise,  and 
to  depend  chiefly  upon  the  central  ruling  power  for 
all  progressive  tendencies  and  impulses. 

Like  the  French  people,  the  Slavonic  races  belong 
to  the  social  and  femenoid  types  of  mankind — 
though  with  far  less  individuality  than  they— and 
they  cultivate  and  feed  upon  the  social-spiritual 
forces  more  than  other  people. 

150 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

Compare  with  these  the  wonderful  energy,  in- 
dividuality, mobility,  and  the  intellectual  progress  of 
the  Grecian  peoples  and  the  English-speaking  na- 
tions. 

The  Greeks,  though  but  a  very  small  people  divided 
up  among  quite  a  number  of  petty  states,  during 
their  time  displayed  an  energy  and  activity,  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual,  national  and  individual,  that 
has  been  the  astonishment  and  admiration  of  man- 
kind for  more  than  twenty-five  centuries.  Glorious 
little  Greece,  with  thy  wondrously  variegated  scen- 
ery, thy  lovely  vales,  thy  lofty  mountains,  sparkling 
and  transparent  seas  and  lakes,  thy  beautiful  island 
gems. 

"Where  burning  Sappho  loved  and  sang;" 

thyself  a  most  wondrous  picture  drawn  by  the  finger 
of  the  Almighty;  one  of  the  triumph  functions  of 
the  spiritual  womb  wherein  was  gestated  the  early 
forms  of  that  civilization  which,  when  it  is  perfected, 
will  fill  the  earth  with  the  divine  glory.  What  other 
hand  in  all  the  world  could  have  supplied  so  wonderful 
a  variety  and  supply  of  those  subtle  and  refined  forces 
and  foods  which  were  required  to  build  up  a  race  of 
artists,  poets,  philosophers,  orators,  statesmen,  scien- 
tists, and  even  warriors,  as  thou  hast  done? 

Thy  geographical  form  upon  the  map  is  that  of  the 
human  hand,  for  there  is  a  correspondence  more  or 
less  perfect  of  all  things  terrestrial  and  celestial,  and 
justly  so,  in  thy  example,  for  thou  art  the  land  by 
which  the  creative  intelligencies  traced  the  first  great 
lessons  in  art,  science,  philosophy,  poetry,  eloquence, 
democracy,  patriotism,  and  in  the  science  and  arts  of 
Homo-Culture. 

What  country  has  supplied  more  glorious  examples 
of  patriotic  devotion  in  defense  of  home,  country,  lib- 
erty and  civilization  than  thou  hast? 

Delightful  Greece!  Inspired  by  thy  grand,  lovely 
pictures,  wrought  in  earth,  sea,  sky  and  stars,  thy 
poets,  philosophers,  artists  and  scientists  have  dreamed 

iSi  , 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

dreams  that  to-day  have  become  hving  realities  and  the 
wonder  and  deHght  of  mankind.  Even  thy  beloved 
Socrates,  in  demonstrating  the  existence  of  the  one 
God  and  his  glorious  attributes,  drew  his  inspiration 
in  great  degree  from  thy  glorious  environments. 

Greece  supplies  us  with  an  example  of  a  purely 
vegetarian  people — a  fact  that  goes  far  toward  an 
explanation  of  her  intellectual  glory  and  her  political 
defeats  as  a  people  or  peoples.  Greece  was  the  most 
purely  intellectual  and  aesthetic  people  the  world  has 
produced. 

Vegetarian  peoples  produce  the  most  active  and 
powerful  men  of  the  race.  When  that  important 
work  has  been  accomplished  of  spiritualizing  the 
racial  soma,  then  will  come  the  time  of  the  second 
Anastasis,  or  resurrection,  referred  to  by  Christ, 
wherein  the  early  and  ignorant  pioneer  races  and 
families  of  mankind  shall,  at  the  end  of  a  thousand 
years — the  briefest  period  within  which  they  can 
properly  return — in  spirit  life,  have  their  opportun- 
ity granted  for  a  new  reincarnation  in  the  flesh. 

This  is  the  philosophic  reason  for  the  seeming 
cruel  and  prodigal  waste  of  human  life  by  flood, 
earthquake,  disease,  battle-field,  and  in  other  ways, 
by  which  whole  families  and  races  perish. 

It  is  "natural  selection  and  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test." Nature  takes  care  only  of  those  racial  and 
other  forms  that  tend  most  swiftly  to  the  evolution 
of  the  perfected  somatic  body  of  the  race,  so  that 
it  shall  become  a  perfect  instrument  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  needs  and  uses  of  the  future  in- 
carnations of  mankind.  Then  will  come  the  proper 
time  of  re-incarnation,  not  only  for  the  pioneer  races, 
many  of  them,  but  for  those  especially  who  in  past 
times  benevolent  and  cosmical  uses  enjoyed  but  a 
brief  or  imperfect  incarnation.  Great  numbers  also 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Solar- Spiritual  Heavens 
will  then  incarnate  as  teachers  and  exemplars  of 
mankind.  Whether  a  time  will  soon  come  when  all 
men  will  become  vegetarians  in  their  habits,  time 
only  can  determine;  though  probably  so,  unless  star- 

152 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

eyed  science  shall,  as  now  appears  likely,  become 
able  to  derive  the  foods  of  man  directly  from  the 
earth's  atmosphere,  where  the  elements  of  all  that  he 
now  has,  or  may  have,  are  to  be  found  in  more  per- 
fect union  with  the  spiritual  elements  which  perma- 
nently enfold  and  spiritually  chemicalize  and  vitaHze 
them  for  the  uses  of  both  the  animal  and  spiritual 
vestments  of  man. 

The  use  of  a  purely  vegetarian  diet  tends  greatly, 
however,  to  the  formation  of  an  intellectual  and 
spiritual  high  priesthood,  whose  function  in  the  life 
of  the  Divine  Humanity  shall  be  to  spiritualize  the 
animal  and  spiritual  bodies  of  the  race.  That  pro- 
cess will  go  on  until  the  racial  animal  body  of  man- 
kind shall  become  spiritualized  and  refined  to  a  de- 
gree as  yet  unknown.  Will  continue  until  there  shall 
no  longer  exist  any  of  that  antagonism  between  the 
aspirations  and  desires  of  the  animal  and  the  spirit- 
ual bodies  of  mankind  alluded  to  by  Paul :  'Tor  the 
flesh  warreth  against  the  spirit  and  the  spirit  against 
the  flesh."  But  the  Soma  or  animal  body  will  not 
become  any  the  less  robust  or  potent  by  this 
refining  process,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  will  be- 
come vastly  more  powerful  as  well  as  healthy  by  it, 
until  disease  and  death  has  been  banished  from  the 
earth. 

Professor  Berthelot,  a  French  scientist,  has  for 
some  time  been  experimenting  on  the  synthetic  pro- 
cess of  deriving  the  foods  of  man  direct  from  the 
atmosphere,  and  has  recently  announced  that  he  has 
discovered  a  cheap  process  by  which  sugar  can  be 
made  from  the  air  we  breathe,  which  in  truth  con- 
tains all  the  elements  of  the  foods  we  use,  both  of  a 
spiritual  and  terrestrial  character. 

Part  III. 

The  priesthood  in  all  ages  have  asserted  and  exer- 
cised their  right  to  determine  the  kinds  and  quali- 
ties of  the  foods  that  mankind  shall  live  upon.  The 
principle  is  not  only  a  true,  but  also  a  very  important 

IS3 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

one  for  the  government  of  mankind  in  its  early  baby- 
hood estates  and  conditions.  But  they  may  carry 
the  principle  too  far  and  in  this  way  interfere  with 
the  perfect  right  that  all  should  have,  to  choose 
their  own  spiritual  foods  when  he  has  arrived  at 
man's  estate,  just  the  same  that  he  possesses  to 
choose  his  own  material  foods  as  he  approaches  and 
attains  physical  manhood. 

Said  St.  Ambrose,  referring  to  the  Eucharist:  "I 
believe  it  because  it  is  impossible !"  The  remark 
shows  how  absolutely  needful  it  is  for  men  that  may 
be  endowed  with  great  intelligence  and  even  wisdom 
in  the  events  and  things  of  this  world — to  have  some 
one — some  authority — that  they  have  confidence  in — 
to  select  their  spiritual  food  for  them,  not  having 
any  proper  judgment  in  their  ability  to  choose  their 
own  spiritual  foods  and  nourishments.  "For  seeing 
they  see  not,  and  hearing  they  hear  not,  neither  do 
they  understand"  the  things  of  the  Spiritual  man. 

This  is  neither  to  be  regarded  as  at  all  wonderful 
or  to  be  regretted  provided  this  is  the  motive  that 
prompts  so  many  to  abandon  their  leanings  and 
attachments  and  fall  back  into  Rome  or  into  its 
ecclesiastical  and  spiritual  environments ;  though 
some  without  doubt  have  taken  the  step  from  lack 
of  courage,  and  confidence  in  themselves,  and  others 
from  mercenary  motives. 

But  one  of  the  most  powerful,  perhaps  the  most 
powerful,  of  the  inducements  that  cause  men  to  leave 
their  liberal  attachments  and  to  fall  back  into  the 
older  forms  of  spiritual  organization,  lies  in  the  fact 
that  so  many  living  in  too  great  laxity  in  the  princi- 
ples of  mental  and  moral  freedom,  have  fallen  into 
vicious  and  even  criminal  ways  and  habits  of  life. 
They  indicate  the  near  and  swift  approach  of  the  new, 
diviner,  more  spiritual  and  social  order  of  human  life, 
"New  Spiritual  Heavens  and  the  New  Earth"  of 
John  Apocalypse,  xxi.,  i,  and  terrible  crimes  and 
seeming  casualties  are  among  the  forces  that  are  be- 
ginning to  sweep  the  old  order  of  things,  viz. :  the 
"First"  or  the  Old  "Heavens,"  political,  social  and 

154 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

other,  and  the  "First"  or  Old  Earth,  in  its  industrial, 
economical  and  social-industrial,  and  fearfully  wrong 
and  unjust  aspects — off  the  stage  of  time  and  the 
world. 

"And  I  saw  a  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  for 
Old  (or  First)  heavens  and  the  old  earth  had  passed 
away  and  there  was  no  more  sea." 

This  removal  of  the  Old  Heavens  and  the  Old  Earth 
spoken  of  in  Rev.  xxi.,  is  referred  to  in  Rev.  x.,  2,  also 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth  verses.  The  little  book  referred 
to  in  the  second  verse  is  social-industrialism  or  the 
new  spiritual  earth,  which  though  it  be  very  sweet 
to  the  taste  of  the  most  people  is  very  bitter  in  the  belly 
and  very  difficult  of  digestion  and  assimilation  in  the 
great  body  of  the  Divine  Humanity,  as  it  is  already 
proving  itself  to  be  and  will  become  still  more  so  in 
the  near  future,  when  the  old  order  of  things  must 
give  place  to  the  new  Novus  Ordo.  For  this  is  the 
moulting  period  of  the  planetary  man,  and  is  as  abso- 
lutely indispensable  to  the  life  of  the  Divine  Humanity 
that  it  should  moult  and  cast  off  its  old  clothes,  as 
it  is  for  the  caterpillar  to  moult  into  the  Psyche  or 
butterfly — just  the  same,  and  equally  marvellous  when 
the  transformation  has  been  fully  accomplished. 

Its  acomplishment  will  be  attended  with  vast 
changes  and  more  or  less  of  human  sorrow  and  suf- 
fering. But,  if  all  souls  will  have  faith  in  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  our  Heavenly  Father  in  causing  us 
to  pass  through  these  vast  transformations  in  the 
Divine  Humanity,  and  will  pray  to  him  that  they 
shal  be  attended  with  the  least  suffering  and  loss 
compatible  with  the  working  out  of  his  vast  plans  and 
purposes  concerning  them,  much  can  be  done  to  miti- 
gate their  sharpness ;  for  the  terrestial  man  has  great 
power  to  co-operate  with  the  spiritual  heavenly  man 
in  this  era  which  belongs  to  the  woman,  who  is  more 
gentle  and  lovable  than  is  man,  her  male  companion, 
and  is  destined  to  exert  vast  influence  over  the  desti- 
nies of  the  world  in  all  time  and  ways. 

"And  the  angel  that  I  saw  stand  upon  the  sea  and 
upon  the   earth   lifted  up  his  hand  to  heaven,   and 

155 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

swore  by  Him  that  liveth  forever  and  ever,  who  created 
the  heavens  and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the 
earth  and  the  things  that  therein  are ;  and  the  sea  and 
the  things  that  are  therein,  that  there  should  be  time  no 
longer" 

In  the.  paragraph  of  Rev.  x.,  we  are  given  a  proph- 
ecy that  already  and  recentjy  had  its  fulfilment  and  in 
a  very  wonderful  way  in  the  evolution  of  the  means  of 
communication  over  the  whole  earth.  We  have  prac- 
tically annihilated  time  for  our  own  darling  little  world 
and  shall  ere  long  doubtless  co-operate  with  the  peo- 
ples inhabiting  the  other  planets  of  our  solar  system 
in  establishing  communication  between  our  world  and 
theirs,  as  hath  already  been  mooted  by  intelligent  men. 
This  great  universe  that  we  have  got  into  is  in  truth  a 
marvellous  thing. 

"But  in  the  days  of  the  voice  of  the  seventh  angel 
then  he  shall  begin  to  sound  the  Mystery  of  God  should 
he  finished  as  he  hath  declared  to  his  servants,  the 
prophets."  This  prophecy  has  also  been — is  being — 
fulfilled  at  this  very  time  in  the  history  of  man.  This 
prophecy  is  made  perfectly  plain  in  the  Eighty-second 
Psalm  of  David,  so  far  as  statement  can  make  plain. 
It  is  also  made  very  plain  and  obvious  in  John  x.,  34- 
36.  But  its  true  significance  is  held  back  both  by  the 
spiritual  ignorance  and  the  preconceptions  of  the  great 
portion  of  mankind  and  by  angelic  interference  until 
their  spiritual  understandings  have  reached  that  de- 
gree of  evolution  where  they  can  receive  and  make 
use  of  this  important  truth  without  injury  to  them- 
selves individually  and  socially. 

For  it  is  with  angels  as  with  men,  who  introduce  all 
great  truths  and  events  upon  the  historic  stage,  each 
important  truth  or  event  making  its  entrances  and 
exits  in  its  own  exact  and  proper  time,  otherwise  con- 
fusion, disorder  and  great  injury  would  result  to  the 
highest  interests  of  civilization.  There  are  great  num- 
bers of  arcana  that  have  lain  in  an  occult  and  dormant 
condition  on  the  pages  of  the  Divine  Word,  patiently 
biding  the  time  when  they  will  be  called  to  participate 
actively  in  the  mighty  march  of  the  ages.    We  have 

156 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

a  beautiful  exemplification  of  this  law  in  the  treatment 
of  the  vast  and  important  truth  disclosed  by  the  Mas- 
ter and  recorded  in  Rev.  xxii.,  i6,  both  by  angels  and 
by  mankind,  who  were  not  permitted  to  ^'receive"  and 
appropriate  this  very  important  and  creed-destroying 
arcanum  until  certain  older  truths  and  foods  had  be- 
come sated  and  unfit  for  spiritual  use  and  were  mak- 
ing their  exits  to  give  place  to  the  new.  The  spiritual 
and  the  rational  understandings  of  men  have  advanced 
to  a  stature  that  not  only  premits  but  demands  it. 
For,  indeed,  and  in  truth,  this  is  the  time  spoken  of  by 
the  angel  in  Rev.  x.,  when  the  voice  of  the  seventh 
angel  is  ''beginning''  to  sound  forth  the  mighty  truth 
that  the  kingdoms  are  become  the  kingdoms  of  our 
Lord  and  of  his  Christ:  ''And  he  shall  reign  forever 
and  ever."  The  reader  will  note  that  the  ''finishing" 
or  full  unfoldment  of  this  mighty  "Mystery  of  God" 
that  has  dominated  man  during  all  the  long  ages  of 
the  spiritual-Sarval  and  infantile  estates,  making  him 
appear  unto  himself  as  an  abject  "worm  of  the  dust" 
— takes  place  when  the  seventh  angej  shall  "begin" 
to  sound  the  "finishing"  or  ending  of  the  mystery,  be- 
ing anterior  to  the  sounding  of  the  trumpet  of  the  sev- 
enth angel  which  will  not  take  place  until  a  time  sub- 
sequent to  the  unfoldment  of  the  mystery,  as  the  "be- 
coming" of  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  his  "Christ" 
on  the  part  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  is  a  continu- 
ous action,  and  though  swiftly  advancing  will  require 
a  little  time  yet  for  its  full  and  perfect  completion. 

There  is  a  wonderful  significance  in  this  action  of 
the  "mighty  angel,"  that  in  this  beautiful  symbolic 
picture  represents  the  vast  social-industrial  concerns 
of  men  in  placing  his  feet  upon  both  sea  and  land,  and 
by  so  doing  and  in  this  manner  appropriating  the  whole 
world  and  all  that  it  contains  in  behalf  of  and  as  a 
representative  of  the  whole  people  whose  patient  toil 
and  genius  has  accomplished  this  wonderful  annihila- 
tion of  time,  and  has  brought  the  ends  of  the  earth 
together. 


157 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


FORCES  PERSONAL  AND  IMPERSONAL. 

In  this  work-a-day  universe  of  the  living  God,  men 
and  angels,  who  are  spiritually  advanced  men  in  de- 
carnate  conditions,  are  the  factors,  or  the  doers  and 
actors  of  the  Living  Word. 

The  highest  forms  of  the  living  forces  that  carry  on 
all  the  vast  operations  of  universal  life  are  the  organic 
personal  forces — the  men  and  women,  whether  incar- 
nate or  decarnate,  that  do  the  work — as  the  Bible  itself 
has  stated  (and  spiritual  science  reveals)  :  ''All  things 
were  made  by  him  (Christ)  and  without  him  was  not 
anything  made  that  was  made."  But  this  statement 
which  was  intended  for  the  infant  spiritual  man  as  a 
literal  truth  in  the  earlier  ages  of  Christianity,  hath  in 
it  a  higher,  more  perfect  truth  or  revealment  for  the 
more  advanced  spiritual  man  of  to-day:  and  that 
higher  truth  is  the  fact  that  Christ,  in  this  statement 
of  the  Word,  has  a  representative  meaning.  He  stands 
for  humanity  itself.  It  is  plain  to  see  that  he  could 
not  have  done  the  work  alone.  He  must  have  co-oper- 
ation infinite,  and  there  must  be  untold  numbers  of 
them  co-operating  with  our  Christ  in  the  world-build- 
ing and  man-building  work.  We  believe  Dr.  Abbott 
to  be  correct  so  far  as  his  statement  covers  the  whole 
ground,  which  it  does  not  fully. 

There  is  a  great  ''First  Cause/*  but  it  is  not  a  "First" 
cause  as  to  chronological  sequence,  but  in  spiritual 
sequence  of  degree  and  kind.  It  is  the  prime  cause  of 
all  other  causes  of  inferior  and  less  degree  and  rela- 
tionship. 

Dr.  Abbott,  in  so  defining  and  putting  aside  the  idea 
of  causation,  has  stepped  off  into  space,  as  it  were — 
into  the  inorganic  world  of  chaotic  forces,  whither  the 
most  of  his  readers,  at  least,  neither  will  nor  can 
desire  to  follow  him. 

He  appears  to  have  landed  in  the  camp  of  the 
materialists.    It  remains  to  be  seen  what  they  will  do 

_     _/         iS8  


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

with  one  who  finds  something  in  this  great  infinite 
universe  besides  gross  matter. 

Dr.  Abbott's  definition,  if  we  rightly  comprehend  it, 
may  be  considered  as  in  some  respects  a  proper  one 
to  define  the  inorganic  forces  of  the  various  spiritual 
atmospheres  that  surround  the  world,  and  as  a  spirit- 
ual envelope  that  includes  and  invests  the  entire  uni- 
verse of  all  the  worlds  as  the  over  soul.  Like  the 
atmosphere  that  invests  our  own  world  and  which  is 
constantly  and  forever  flowing  into  and  out  of  our 
bodies  with  every  breath  that  we  inhale  or  exhale,  and 
is  the  force  that  aids  in  the  work  of  carrying  on  all 
the  affairs  of-  the  human  system,  both  material  and 
spiritual.  And  possibly  this  is  what  the  doctor  means 
when  he  says:  "My  God  is  an  ever  present  force, 
which  is  manifest  in  all  the  activities  of  men  and  in 
all  the  workings  of  Nature."  In  this  he  is  undoubtedly 
correct.  And  again  when  he  says:  "I  believe  in  a 
God  who  is  in  and  through  of  everything,  and  not 
an  absentee  God  whom  we  have  to  reach  through  a 
Bible  or  some  other  outside  aid,  but  a  God  that  is 
closer  than  hands  or  feet." 

In  this,  too,  his  statement  appears  to  be  correct  if 
we  understand  it  rightly,  and  yet  he  probably  looks 
still  and  only  to  these  inorganic  forces  that  reside  in 
the  atmospheres  of  the  worlds  for  the  source  or  foun- 
tainhead  of  them  all,  and  not  to  the  forces  that  are  sent 
down  to  man  by  and  from  the  living  brain  of  the  great 
infinite  spiritual  universe  itself,  which  is  what  men 
call  God.  And  rightly,  too,  if  they  will  only  be  careful 
to  distinguish  in  their  thought  which  is  meant. 
Whether  it  be  the  holo-kosm  or  Iniinite  God,  or  the 
Micro-cosm  or  finite  one,  for  they  are  corresponden- 
tially  alike,  but  for  lack  of  right  words  to  designate 
them  we  are  apt  to  define  and  to  use  them  as  though 
literally  alike — a  usage  that  creates  much  confusion 
and  manifold  misunderstandings  in  the  minds  and 
in  the  hearts  of  men. 

When  the  doctor  makes  the  statement  that  "the  Bible 
can  no  longer  be  accepted  as  ultimate,  we  hardly  com- 
prehend his  meaning,  unless  it  be  that  men  will  spir- 

159 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

itually  remain  right  where  they  are  at  present,  holding 
on — many  of  them  Hving,  literally,  on  the  merest 
husks  of  the  Word,  and  hence  becoming  spiritually 
dead  and  incapable  while  in  that  condition  of  spiritual 
death,  of  making  any  genuine  progress  in  spiritual 
things. 

If  that  be  his  meaning  we  agree  with  him  and  we 
further  suppose  that  no  intelligent  man  or  woman 
will  fail  to  agree  with  him  in  this  view  of  it. 

But  if  he  means  to  say  that  the  Bible  has  been  fairly 
outgrown  as  a  spiritual  textbook  for  the  masses  of 
mankind,  especially  when  it  has  been  taug*ht  and 
received  by  men  in  the  more  interior  and  spiritual 
sense,  certain  portions  of  it,  why  then  we  are  obliged 
to  seriously  differ  with  him. 

While  we  entirely  repudiate  the  practice  of  Swed- 
enborg  in  his  attempts  to  spiritualize  a  great  portion 
of  the  Bible  that  concerns  the  physical,  political  and 
historical  affairs  of  the  Jews,  we  still  hold  that  there 
are  other  portions  of  the  occult  Word  that  the  greater 
portion  of  mankind,  at  least,  have  not  reached  spiritu- 
ally insoluble,  inert  and  dead — their  spiritual  digestive 
organs  do  not  grasp  and  appropriate  them.  The  high- 
est and  most  perfect  source  of  the  energies  and  the 
forces  that  forever  play  upon  and  upbuild  and  sus- 
tain the  life  of  man  come  from  the  mighty  outflow  from 
the  celestial-spiritual  brain  of  the  universe — God  in 
the  very  highest  and  most  perfect  of  his  divine  celes- 
tial correspondences.  For  the  universes  like  man  have 
a  twofold,  yea,  even  a  threefold  circulation  of  the  mag- 
netic and  other  foods  and  bloods  that  constitute  the  cir- 
culatory system  of  the  vast  Divine,  Unutterable  Being 
whom  men  truly  worship  as  the  one  only  God. 

From  this  solar  celestial,  spiritual  brain  of  the  Su- 
preme Being  eternally  pour  forth  those  mighty  cur- 
rents of  the  magnetic  loves  which  are  spiritual  bloods 
and  other  life  forces  of  the  Divine  Being,  and  stream- 
ing through  its  vast  arterial  system,  invade,  pervade 
and  renew  every  part  and  atom  of  its  infinite  body. 

:But  these  vital  currents  of  the  mighty  food  forces 
by  which  the  vast  population  of  this  Infinite  Being  are 

i6o 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

feci  and  sustained,  originate  as  we  have  seen,  in  the 
positive  polaric  forces  of  the  celestial-spiritual  solar 
worlds  and  descend  downward  and  outward  into  every 
part,  organ  and  function,  not  only  of  the  higher  worlds 
but  also  of  all  the  terrestrial  worlds  that  inhabit  space 
and  form  the  negative  pole  in  this  mighty  cycle  of 
world  being. 

From  all  these  lower  (terrestial)  worlds  also  forever 
flow  forth  responsive  return  currents  which  correspond 
with  the  venous  circulation  in  the  human  body,  to  feed 
the  suns  and  all  their  containments  of  spiritual  being, 
and  in  this  way  to  restore  and  to  maintain  the  equilib- 
rium of  the  mighty  circulatory  system  of  the  interior 
fluids  of  this  vast  Infinite  Eus. 

For  the  suns,  spiritual  and  material,  feed  the  uni- 
verses and  all  their  containments  with  the  positive 
food  forces,  while  in  return  the  terrestrial  worlds, 
which  are  the  nurseries  for  rearing  and  educating 
God's  great  infinite  family  of  spiritual  child-men,  feed 
the  higher  and  solar  worlds  and  all  their  belongings 
with  those  negative  food  forms,  personal  and  imper- 
sonal which  they  require  for  their  uses.  The  Gods  in 
universal  life  in  their  relations  with  the  Divine  Human- 
ity, as  we  have  elsewhere  indicated,  sustain  a  similar 
correspondential  relation  that  the  infinitely  manifold 
cells  of  both  the  material  and  spiritual  bodies  of  men 
have  and  hold  to  each  other.  And  the  ultimate  uses 
which  men  and  women  subserve  in  the  economies  of 
universal  life  is  to  refit  and  renew  the  higher  Gods 
and  thus  to  bridge  over  the  vast  period  of  time  em- 
braced in  the  next  kosmic  cycle  that  lies  before  them  in 
the  future,  by  a  new  incarnation  with  some  of  the 
Younger  Gods  who  have  through  ages  and  manifold 
re-incarnations  perfected  their  own  being  in  terrestrial 
and  spiritual  estates. 

For  this  is  the  ultimate  use,  purpose  and  destiny  for 
which  man,  the  young  infant  God,  who  was  made  in 
the  express  image  and  likeness  of  the  infinite  God  him- 
self {"let  us  make  man  in  our  own  image  and  likeness" 
— are  the  words  of  Jehovah)  and  has  been  called  forth 
into   being — to    refresh,    renew    and    perpetuate    the 

i6i 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

higher  Gods,  when  worn  and  weary  from  excess  of 
age.  They  must  have  rest,  refreshment  and  renewal 
of  their  bodies  ere  they  go  forth  into  a  new  cycle  of 
the  eternities  of  being  and  action. 

And  thus  do  they,  the  Son  and  the  Father,  mutually 
eternize  one  another. 

Like  Eneas  when  Troy  was  in  flames,  he  takes  his 
ancient  father,  Anchises,  upon  his  young  broad  and 
strong  shoulders  and  bears  him  forth  into  the  world 
of  life  again  and  thus  renews  his  age  and  perpetuates 
his  existence. 

"And  I  gave  unto  them  eternal  life;"  the  statement 
applies  equally  to  both. 

The  benefits  conferred  are  mutual  and  equal  like  and 
unlike,  different  and  the  same — and  thus  do  they  mutu» 
ally  restore,  renew  and  prepare  one  another  to  enter 
upon  a  new  cycle  in  the  rhythmic  onflow  of  the  infi- 
nite, eternal  ages. 


CHURCHES  AND  CREEDS— WHAT  ARE 

THEY? 

The  Church  is  God  in  humanity,  playing  the  infinite 
role  of  civilization.  The  word  Church  meaneth  "God's 
House'*  in  the  original,  and  was  built  upon  the  earth- 
plane  to  house  God's  great  family  of  man  during  its 
spiritual  infancy,  against  the  inclemencies  of  time  and 
world,  and  to  act  as  a  mighty  lever  to  uplift  mankind 
on  tp  the  higher  planes  and  spheres  of  life,  of  being, 
and  of  action. 

Sects  and  creeds  are  but  the  natural  expression  of 
the  essential  differentiations  that  necessarily  exist  in 
human  life  growing  out  of  childhood  conditions 
and  the  proper  functionation  of  the  great  family  of 
men,  which  takes  place  during  the  spiritual-larval  and 
infantile  stages  of  his  being,  but  will  ultimately  dis- 

162 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS.    ' 

appear  as  he  approaches  nearer  to  manhood's  estate, 
where  he  will  be  better  able  to  comprehend  the  "per- 
fect law  of  liberty"  for  every  soul  of  man;  and  that 
these  natural  differentiations  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
man  have  been  stamped  upon  his  very  inmost  being 
by  his  Creator  to  enable  him  to  perform  the  manifold 
offices,  functions  and  uses  in  the  social  and  spiritual 
life  of  the  Divine  Humanity  that  he  forever  destined  to 
fulfill. 

Creeds  are  spiritual  landmarks  on  this  great  "scene 
of  man,"  and  perform  important  uses  in  the  early 
stages  of  his  progressive  spiritual  life.  They  also  in 
some  of  their  spiritual  forms  and  features  represent 
those  standard  spiritual  foods  upon  which  it  is  indis- 
pensable that  the  infant  larval  and  spiritual  man  should 
be  fed  in  order  that  he  shall  grow  up  in  normal  condi- 
tions. For  "as  a  man  thinketh  so  he  isf*  And  also, 
as  a  man  eateth  so  he  is:  since  to  think  is  also  to  eat 
spiritually.    They  are  correlative  terms. 

For  "Except  ye  eat  of  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man 
and  drink  his  blood  ye  have  no  (proper)  life  in  you. 
For  my  flesh  is  meat  indeed  and  blood  is  drink  indeed." 
In  other  words,  they  were  standard  spiritual  foods 
upon  which  the  spiritual  catechism  of  the  church  were 
to  be  fed,  neglecting  which  they  (even)  did  not  have 
any  (true  and  normal)  spiritual  life  whatsoever. 

Yes,  the  old  German  proverb  is  very  true  indeed: 
"Der  mensch  ist  was  er  isst,"  or  "Man  is  what  he 
eats." 

Take  twin  children  of  the  same  father  and  mother, 
and  of  equal  moral  and  mental  endowments,  and  let 
one  of  them  grow  up  under  the  highest  moral,  social 
and  spiritual  surroundings,  and  the  other  under  the 
very  lowest  and  basest  environment  of  the  streets 
and  slums  of  a  great  city  and  an  associate  of  the 
very  worst  of  the  criminal  classes.  They  would 
never  be  recognized  probably  by  any  one  as  brothers 
of  the  same  family,  even  though  twins  of  very 
close  resemblance,  before  separation,  upon  whom 
the  experiment  had  been  made,  and  so  nearly  alike  in 
form  and  feature  and  mental  and  moral  expression  of 

163 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

face  at  the  outset  that  friends  could  not  distinguish 
one  from  the  other.  The  very  different  foods,  mental, 
moral  and  even  the  material  foods  upon  which  they 
had  subsisted  during  the  years  of  their  ascent  from 
tender  infancy  to  late  adult  life,  would  in  all  proba- 
bility have  obliterated  all  trace  of  that  wonderful  pa- 
ternal resemblance  that  existed  between  them  before 
they  were  separated  from  each  other  and  placed  under 
different  mental,  moral  and  material  surroundings- 
They  had  lived  so  long  upon  a  different  menu,  spiritual 
and  other,  and  subject  to  that  marvellous  spiritual 
chemistry  that  worketh  in  every  man — whether  to 
build  him  up  into  greater  sublime  heights  of  the  divine 
wisdom  and  glory  or  sink  him  into  vaster  deeps  of 
moral  and  spiritual  degradation  each  man  must  deter- 
mine for  himself  in  the  long  run — hath  wrought  out 
in  each  a  very  different  spiritual  body  built  up  indeed 
of  quite  different  foods,  forms  and  forces  and  as  to 
their  former  apparent  identity  wholly  unrecognizable 
to  the  eve  of  man. 

We  belong  to  no  one  of  the  churches  save  to  all 
of  them  in  a  sort  of  spiritual  way.  I  went  into  one  of 
them  very  many  years  ago  when  a  young  student, 
but  as  I  could  not  take  the  creed  entire,  was  allowed 
to  enter  by  merely  assenting  to  the  Covenant.  I  shall 
always  be  devoutly  thankful  for  having  been  permitted 
to  enter  and  to  abide  in  ''God's  House'*  during  those 
early  years. 

We  should  greatly  dislike  to  live  in  a  world  without 
a  church,  religion,  Bible  and  without  a  God.  The 
churches  have  been  the  central,  mental,  moral  and  spir- 
itual forces  that  have  built  up  the  civilizations  of  man- 
kind the  world  over,  chief  among  which  by  far  are 
those  which  have  been  established  upon  the  formations 
established  by  the  great  teacher  himself. 

We  surmise  that  skepticism  itself  would  tire  of  living 
in  a  Godless  world  and  like  Napoleon-  desire  to  restore 
the  old  regime  that  had  been  overturned  by  the  mad- 
caps of  the  revolution. 

The  Presbyterian  Church,  at  its  late  convention,  did 
some  wise  things,  and  things  that  were  otherwisQ.  It 

164 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

did  one  very  wise  thing  when  it  threw  overboard  the 
doctrine  of  the  damnation  of  infants,  those  btessed 
Httle  ones  that  Christ  took  into  his  arms  and  blessed 
them  as  the  special  objects  of  the  love  and  affection 
,  of  the  Heavenly  Father. 

But  the  Church  in  convention,  with  nearly  full  sov- 
ereign powers  we  may  say,  would  have  done  a  much 
wiser  thing  still  if  it  had  placed  before  the  world 
the  spiritual,  or  better  still,  the  scientific  meaning,  not 
only  of  his  very  strange  doctrine  of  the  eternal  torture 
of  little 'children,  but  its  companion-doctrine  of  eternal 
reprobation.  For  this  idea,  like  all  others  that  come 
into  human  life,  enter  by  virtue  of  certain  truths  that 
are  lodged  within  it,  but  in  symbolic  forms  that  are 
visible  only  to  the  feminine  or  spiritual  understanding 
but  not  to  the  masculine  or  rational  understanding  of 
man.  But  if  it  does  seize  hold  of  the  very  small  frac- 
tion of  the  whole  truth  contained  within  the  statement 
and  expands  it  to  cover  the  whole  fact — the  part  for 
the  whole,  the  symbol  for  that  which  only  in  a  very 
partial  manner  represents  the  full  fact,  as  this  one 
should  literally  take  the  picture  of  the  horse  for  the 
horse  itself. 

Both  of  these  doctrines  are  substantially  true,  and 
it  is  indeed  a  very  strange  and  wonderful  thing  that 
it  should  ever  have  gotten  into  the  narrow  limits  of 
the  creed,  or  once  having  entered  it  should  have  re- 
mained in  it  for  so  long  a  time  without  having  devel- 
oped its  spiritual  sense. 

This  strange  doctrine  of  the  damnation  of  infant 
children  in  hell  is  due  to  the  mistake  of  taking  the 
narrow  literal  symbol,  for  the  real,  the  broad  eternal 
facts  of  man's  wonderful  experiences  while  traversing 
the  worlds  in  his  everlasting  flight  through  time,  space 
and  matter.  As  stated  in  a  former  paragraph,  it  is  a 
very  great  and  very  serious  injury  to  the  incarnating 
spirit  to  be  deprived  of  its  material  body,  torn  asunder 
when  both  the  material  and  spiritual  body  are  in  so 
new,  tender,  imperfect  and  rapidly  formative  states, 
which  we  can  easily  see  if  we  reflect  that  this  material 
counterpart  of  the  incarnating  spirit,  viz.,  the  material 

165 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

body,  is  nothing  less  than  a  great  part  of  the  digestive 
functions  of  the  spirit  man  within,  by  which,  in  con- 
nection with  the  corresponding  spiritual  organs,  the 
incarnating  spirit  was  wont  to  digest,  elaborate  and 
refine  its  various  foods,  both  of  a  spiritual  and  material 
character.  He  has  lost  it  not  alone  as  a  laboratory  for 
the  refinement  and  assimilation  of  all  his  foods,  mater- 
ial and  other,  but  also  as  a  beautiful  and  useful  gar- 
ment to  protect  it  against  the  inclemencies  of  this 
lower  world. 

These  are  among  the  most  important  reasons  why 
the  demise  of  this  material  envelope  of  the  infant  man 
especially  becomes  a  very  great  and  incalculable  injury 
to  the  infant  spirit  when  deprived  of  these  so  important 
organs  and  functions  whereby  he  *iives,  moves  and 
has  (healthful)  being."  The  infant  martyrs  of  the 
spiritual  world  are  thus  obliged  to  undergo  a  greater 
martyrdom  than  do  grown  people  whose  physical  and 
psychical  bodies  we  may  very  naturally  suppose  have 
become  matured  and  incapable  of  serious  detriment  by 
the  transition  we  call  death.  The  sufferings  that  many 
of  them  experienced  in  their  martyrdom  were  indeed 
terrible,  but  in  most  cases  of  brief  duration. 

The  troubles  experienced  by  the  little  ones  by  their 
very  premature  and  enforced  introduction  into  spirit 
life  can  only  be  removed  by  long  residence  in  spiritual 
life,  and  new  incarnations  in  terrestrial  conditions. 
And  this  is  the  reason  why  the  church  authorities  of 
this  world  have  been  prompted  and  inspired  by  the 
Higher  Powers  to  have  this  very  strange  doctrine  of 
the  terrible  liabilities  of  little  children  put  into  the 
creed  in  the  still  more  dreadful  form  of  the  eternal 
damnation  of  the  little  tots  whom  Jesus  Joved  and 
honored  with  the  especial  love  of  the  Father  Himself 
where  it  has  remained  for  ages  as  an  affront  to  God 
and  a  dreadful  stumbling  block  to  man,  Christian  and 
un-Christian,  as  no  one  would  undertake  to  present  the 
scientific  sense  and  meaning  thereof. 

For  the  removal  of  this  evil  of  child  martyrdom 
from  among  mankind  and  womankind  >s  a  matter  in 
which  the  church  must  and  will  be  greatly  concerned 
in  the  near  future. 

i66 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


BABYLON. 

"Come  out  of  her,  come  out  of  her,  oh,  my  people, 
and  be  not  partakers  of  her  sins,*'  and  her  daring 
crimes  against  God  and  the  Divine  Humanity. 

This  is  a  word  of  warning  addressed  to  every  right- 
minded  man  and  woman  of  this  age.  *' Babylon"  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  old  individualistic  civ- 
ilization, now  fast  dying,  that  under  the  similitude  of 
a  city  represents  the  old  order  of  things  under  which 
man  has  lived  during  his  long  infancy.  God — "The 
Higher  Powers" — are  making  war  against  the  Divine 
Humanity  itself  and  its  monstrous  and  unutterable 
crimes,  fairly  bombarding  it  with  the  terrific  forces 
of  the  world  to  make  room  for  the  millennium — or  the 
new  spiritual  social  civilization.  "The  new  heavens 
and  the  new  earth"  which  is  to  take  the  place  of  the 
old  as  soon  as  the  old  can  be  gotten  out  of  the  way. 
The  next  fifteen  years  more  especially  will  be  a  time 
of  "great  tribulation"  for  poor  humanity,  the  object 
of  which  has  been  and  still  is  to  soften  and  fraternize 
the  heart  of  man  up  to  the  "Golden  Rule"  and  to  drive 
humanity  up  on  to  the  higher  spiritual  planes  of  the 
social  and  spiritual  life  of  man. 

Even  the  wars  among  the  various  nations  of  the 
earth  tend  in  the  same  direction — make  men  acquain- 
ted and  fraternal — preparing  mankind  for  the  organic 
life,  and  are  co-operating  with  the  mighty  forces  of 
the  spiritual  heavens,  are  organizing  and  crystalizing 
the  "advance  guard"  of  human  life  and  are  beginning 
to  do  effective  work  in  organizing  "the  new  heavens 
and  the  new  earth." 

Humanity  must  now  put  aside  its  playthings,  put 
its  house  in  order,  as  did  our  people  during  the  rebel- 
lion, and  go  to  work  in  building  up  the  new  social 
order  of  civilization — the  "Novus  Ordo  Saeclorum^'* 
or  the  New  order  of  the  infinite  ages  of  the  divine 
life  of  man. 

167 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 


WHO  IS  JESUS  ? 

He  IS  the  latest  and  greatest  of  the  Avatars  that  have 
ever  come  down  from  the  Fatherhood  into  our  world 
to  instruct  its  people  by  precept  and  by  example,  word 
and  deed,  the  great  primeval  truths  of  the  Divine 
Logos,  or  Word. 

The  word  Avatar  comes  from  A  meaning  from  or 
out  of — and  vatera,  and  meaneth  Fatherhood,  and 
comes  originally  from  the  old  Sanscrit  word  vatri  or 
vater,  which  is  found  in  the  German  as  the  word  for 
father.* 

The  Gods  who  superintend  the  building  of  the 
worlds,  both  temporal  and  spiritual,  as  well  as  the 
civilizations  in  which  they  afterwards  fniit,  live  and 
co-operate  in  vast  societies — fraternal  in  character,  of 
different  ranks,  classes,  orders,  hierarchies,  principal- 
ities and  powers,  and  extend  into  and  embrace  the 
whole  universe  in  all  its  higher  world  spheres,  depart- 
ments and  degrees.  But  sustain  a  paternal  relation  to 
the  lower  spheres  where  the  children  live  and  are 
growing  up  into  manhood  and  the  Godhood  likewise. 
The  children  also,  like  the  Fathers  extend — live  and 
co-operate  throughout  the  entire  universe,  but  in  its 
low,  lower  and  lowest  departments  of  life  and  labor 
in  the  various  worlds  according  to  their  manifold  de- 
grees of  growth  and  progress.  Jesus  himself  refers 
to  the  paternal  relations  that  exist  between  the  higher 
and  the  lower  worlds  of  life  when  he  says : 

'T  came  forth  from  the  Father  (hood)  and  am  come 
into  the  world.  Again  I  leave  the  world  and  return 
to  the  Father" (hood). 

We,  here,  in  these  lower  spheres  and  conditions  of 
our  dear  old  earth,  are  but  an  infinitesimal  fraction 
of  that  vast  infinite  family  of  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren that  swarm  over  and  people  all  the  lower  worlds 


♦Revised  February  20,  1906. 

168 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

that  inhabit  space,  and  are  growing  up  into  a  larger, 
wiser  and  nobler  manhood  and  womanhood  for  the 
needs  and  uses  of  the  Gods  when  fully  grown. 

This  great  family  of  growing  children,  vast  num- 
bers of  whom  as  we  have  heretofore  intimated,  have 
but  recently  emerged  from  the  animal  world,  with 
something  of  the  form,  but  very  little  of  the  mental 
and  moral  status  of  mankind,  have  to  be  taught,  edu- 
cated and  grown  up  into  higher  degrees  of  life,  labor, 
and  progress  in  spiritual  estates  and  conditions.  It 
is  to  superintend  this  labor  of  educating  these  men, 
children  and  others  thatthe  gods,  veiling  their  glori- 
ous forms  in  the  flesh,  come  down  and  mingle  with 
the  men  of  earth  to  teach,  instruct,  govern,  encourage 
and  lead  them  forward  and  upward  into  the  divine 
life  of  the  perfected  man  and  woman. 

It  was  at  a  convention  of  the  Gods  who  had  superin- 
tended the  work  of  creating  our  world,  and  at  a  time 
when  it  had  been  prepared  and  made  ready  for  the 
advent  of  man  upon  it,  that  the  word  went  forth,  "Let 
us  make  man  (and)  "in  our  own  image  and  likeness" 
— for  the  earth  is  now  ready  for  his  advent  and  resi- 
dence. 

Without  the  aid  of  these  holy  men  who  have  been 
the  teachers,  exemplars  and  leaders  of  mankind 
through  the  long  ages  of  his  residence  upon  the  world, 
without  their  aid  to  instruct  and  illuminate  and  inspire 
him  to  resist  and  overcome  the  powerful  attractions 
of  the  flesh,  it  would  have  been  quite  impossible  for 
man  to  rise  superior  to  these  potent  tendencies  and 
impulses  of  the  fleshly  man,  and  he  would  have  re- 
mained forever  subject  to  the  law  of  the  flesh — the 
mere  human  animal  that  he  was  when  he  first 
emerged  from  the  animal  world,  in  which  he  was  ges- 
tated  for  some  millions  of  years. 

Yes,  the  man  Christ  Jesus — which  signifies  "The 
Anointed  Healer'^ — was  a  spiritual  map,  was  a  chart, 
a  picture,  of  the  human  soul  in  all  its  higher  modes, 
tenses,  conditions  and  estates,  mentally,  spiritually  and 
metaphysically — a  standard  man  in  all  the  fulness 
of  the  divine  perfection,  and  was  sent  down  into  our 

I  Go 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

world  by  the  divine  Godhood  Fatherhood — for  they 
are  one — for  an  example,  a  representative  man  of  the 
higher  man  or  gods  of  the  higher  spheres  of  the  spir- 
itual Hfe  of  man;  and  to  become  the  world's  teacher 
in  the  more  practical  and  the  higher  forms  of  the 
word. 

For  Christ,  both  in  word,  deed  and  in  his  entire  life 
was  the  most  practical  exemplar  of  the  doctrines  of 
the  Word — the  most  perfect  combination  of  the  real 
and  the  ideal,  the  practical,  philosophical  and  spiritual, 
that  has  yet  descended  from  the  spiritual  world  to  rep- 
resent at  once  the  manhood  and  the  fatherhood  of  that 
world  in  their  greater  perfection. 

As  Christ  said  of  Himself:  "I  am  come  a  light  into 
the  world  that  whosoever  believeth  on  me  should  not 
abide  in  darkness." 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  GOD. 

"And  I  saw  another  mighty  angel  come  down  from 
heaven  clothed  with  a  cloud,  and  a  rainbow  was  upon 
his  head  and  his  face  was  as  it  were  the  sun,  and  his 
feet  as  pillars  of  fire,  and  he  had  a  little  book  open: 
and  he  set  his  right  foot  on  the  earth  and  cried  with 
a  loud  voice  as  when  a  lion  roareth ;  and  when  he  had 
cried  seven  thunders  uttered  their  voices.  And  the 
seven  thunders  had  uttered  their  voices,  I  was  about 
to  write:  And  I  heard  a  voice  from  Heaven,  saying: 
Seal  up  those  things  which  the  seven  thunders 
uttered;  write  them  not. 

"And  the  Angel  which  I  saw  stand  upon  the  sea  and 
upon  the  earth  lifted  up  his  hand  to  heaven  and  swore 
by  Him  who  liveth  forever  and  ever,  who  created 
heaven  and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the  earth 
and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the  sea  and  the 
things  that  are  therein,  that  time  shall  be  no  longer." 

170 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

This  remarkable  prophecy  has  already  received  its 
fulfilment. 

During  the  past  three-quarters  of  a  century  it 
requires  but  a  very  brief  time  in  minutes  or  seconds  to 
send  a  message  around  the  globe.  But  with  wireless 
telegraphy  there  is  no  appreciable  loss  of  time  incurred 
in  the  transition  of  news  from  place  to  place,  the 
communicating  parties  standing,  as  it  were,  face  to 
face.  The  prophecy  hath  in  this  respect  been  marvel- 
lously fulfilled.  But  in  the  days  of  the  seventh  angel, 
when  he  shall  begin  to  sound  the  "Mystery  of  God" 
should  be  finished — as  he  hath  declared  to  his  servants 
the  prophets — David,  Isaiah,  Micah  and  others.  The 
seventh  angel  is  the  angel  of  peace,  as  will  be  seen 
by  referring  to  Rev.  xi.,  15:  '^'And  the  seventh  angel 
sounded  and  there  were  great  voices  in  heaven  saying 
the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  to  become  the  king- 
doms of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ  and  he  shall  reign 
forever  and  ever. 

This  declaring  of  the  "Mystery  of  God"  does  not 
wait  for  its  complete  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  spoken 
of  in  Rev.  xi.,  15,  but  at  the  time  when  that  angel 
begins  to  sound. 

Japan  came  into  the  kingdom  of  the  rule  of  peace 
and  good  will  nearly  a  half  century  ago.  And  this 
rule  of  love,  of  peace,  and  of  good  will — ^what  is  it, 
otherwise  than  the  kingdom  of  the  heavens?  That  is 
just  what  it  is,  and  Japan  is  the  pioneer  nation  in  the 
Orient  that  has  led  the  way  peacefully  into  the  king- 
dom of  the  heavens.  It  is  a  great  honor  for  the  great- 
little  nation,  and  well  she  deserves  it.  It  is  no  wonder 
the  statesmen  of  spirit  life  who  preside  over  the  des- 
tinies of  the  nations,  sided  so  emphaticallly  with  Japan 
during  her  great  and  terrible  struggle  with  Russia, 
performing  such  prodigies  of  valor  and  of  endurance 
as  the  world  has  never  seen  surpassed  in  any  age  or 
in  any  country  in  the  world. 

But  the  "Mystery  of  God."  What  is  it  other  than  a 
"finishing,"  a  removal  of  the  dense  veil  that  has  hung 
over  the  world  of  mankind  during  the  long  dark  ages 
of  his  ignorant  childhood  ?     But  the  veil  has  at  last 

171 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

been  taken  away,  and  those  who  fear  to  assert  the 
divinity  that  rightfully  belongs  to  them,  it  is  due  either 
to  a  lack  of  faith  in  themselves  or  in  the  plainest 
teachings  of  the  divine  Word.  Did  not  Christ  on  that 
memorable  occasion  when  the  Jews  twice  took  up 
stones  to  kill  him  for  his  blasphemy,  as  they  regarded 
his  words — did  he  not  assert  the  common  divinity,  the 
Universal  Brotherhood  that  unites  and  fraternizes  all 
men,  when  he  plainly  told  the  Jews:  "Doth  not  your 
Scripture  say,  I — Jehovah — said  ye  are  Gods/'  Now 
if  He  called  them  gods,  to  whom  the  word  of  God 
came — viz.,  the  common  people — "Say  ye  of  him 
whom  the  Father  hath  sanctified  and  sent  into  the 
world,  thou  blasphemest  because  I  said  I  am  a  Son 
of  God?" 

In  this  utterance  of  the  Master  he  asserts  the  divin- 
ity common  to  all  men,  himself  included,  and  in  the 
plainest  possible  terms  that  human  language  admits  of. 

In  this  manner  doth  the  great  Teacher  in  the  broad- 
est and  most  unequivocal  terms  assert  the  common 
divinity  of  all  men — of  whom  he  was  one — with  the 
difference  between  himself  and  them  that  he  was  a 
teacher  sent  from  God  to  teach  men.  Nothing  can  be 
plainer  than  these  plain  words  of  the  Master,  which  in 
the  most  unmistakeable  terms  assert  and  proclaim  the 
eternal  divinity  of  man  and  finishes  and  ends  the 
great  "Mystery  of  God."  They  differ  from  them 
only  in  degree  of  advancement — growth,  progress — 
and  are  all  of  them  en  route  to  the  high  hills  of  immor- 
tality and  eternal  life,  to  mingle  with  the  high  gods — 
themselves  also  gods — and  mutually  eternize  each 
other  in  a  new  incarnation,  a  new  cycle  and  a  renewal 
of  their  unending  lijfe. 


ORGANIC. 

I  have  been  informed  by  scientists  who  have  lived 
long  in  spirit  life  that  the  origin  of  species  is  due  to 
the  incarnation  of  some  spirit    form — some    organic 

172 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

principle  of  pure  spiritual  life  upon  some  correspon- 
dent entity  that -is  living  in  utero — or  in  other  words 
in  the  womb  of  the  mother.  For  in  truth  the  germs, 
the  organic  principles  of  all  life  come  from  the  spiritual 
realms  of  life. 

It  is  to  this  being  that  for  the  time  exists  in  the 
mother's  womb  and  is  completing  one  of  its  own 
cycles  of  involution  and  evolution  that  comes  the  abil- 
ity to  bridge  over  the  spaces  that  lie  between  the  infi- 
nitely varied  forms  of  life  that  everywhere  exist  in  the 
realms  of  life. 

And  this  principle  or  law  not  only  obtains  and  gov- 
erns in  the  descent  of  spirit  forms  into  material  forms 
or  involution,  but  applies  also  to  the  ascent  of  the  ma- 
terial life  forms  into  higher  and  more  refined  forms 
and  conditions  of  the  Life  Universal.  It  is  law.  This 
law  or  principle  by  which  life  forever  flows  onward  in 
the  evolution  and  sustenance  of  the  infinitely  varied 
that  everywhere  greet  the  eyes  of  the  beholder  in  all 
parts  of  God's  great  and  blessed  universe. 

The  universe,  or  as  its  name  implies,  the  *^'oNE 
revolving"  is  itself  but  one  being — ^that  in  its  vast- 
ness  comprehends  all  life.  It  is  the  divine,  infinite 
holocosm  or  most  perfect  man — ^the  macrocosm  or 
"grand  man'*  of  Swedenborg. 


DIFFERENTIATIONS. 

The  Seer  is  one  who,  in  his  inspired  hours,  intro- 
duced by  the  Higher  Gods  behind  the  veil  of  flesh 
and  sense,  and  they  reveal  to  him,  hitherto,  "unut- 
terable things." 

Re-incarnation  is  Creation's  law: 
By  it  the  monad  doth  ascend  to  man ; 

Man  to  the  Angel ;  Angel  to  the  God ; 
One  all-embracing  and  eternal  Plan. 

173 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  JCOSMOS. 

But  this  is  only  incidental  to  our  present  purpose. 
I  desire  to  say  a  few  words  on  differentiations  in 
thought  foods,  or  the  "living  biead/' 

"What  is  Truth?"  The  question  is  coeval  w^ith  the 
race ;  one,  at  least,  that  extendeth  back  to  the  time  in 
his  history  when  man  began  to  be  filled  with  a  de- 
sire to  eat  ot  the  fruits  of  the  tree  of  the  Higher 
Knowledges  and  the  Truths  of  Life. 

One  of  the  aspects  in  which  we  desire  to  consider 
Truth  is  its  diversity — the  infinite  shades  of  differ- 
ence in  form,  substance  and  essence,  in  its  infinitely 
varied  and  varymg  forming  and  reforming  integra- 
tions and  combinations  as  foods  for  human  material 
and  spiritual  uses  and  requirements. 

'Both  human,  animal  and  spiritual  foods  differ  as 
greatly — running  into  infinitely  differentiated  com- 
binations, forms  and  essences  in  their  integrations — 
as  do  human  beings  in  form,  face  and  characteris- 
tics. And  this  marvelous  order  exists  manifestly  by 
the  design  and  purpose  of  the  Infinite,  All-Wise 
Creator  of  all  things ;  not  only  to  stimulate,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  satisfy  the  appetite  and  desire  for 
truth  foods,  but  more  especially  to  create  thereby 
an  infinite  variety  and  diversity  of  spiritual  foods  for 
mankind, — and  thereby  to  stimulate  spiritual 
growth, — as  well  as  animal  foods,  and  to  adapt  them 
to  the  infinitely  varied  and  varying  necessities  and 
wrants  of  that  omnivorous  and  infinitely  differen- 
tiated being — man. 

Given  proper  conditions,  and  human  beings  soon 
differ  as  greatly  in  the  forms  and  qualities  of  the 
food  they  eat  as  they  differ  in  face,  feature,  and  in 
their  more  interior  qualities  and  forms  of  life.  But 
insomuch  as  the  exterior  and  interior  forms  and 
qualities  of  every  soul  of  man  have  an  exact  corre- 
spondence, so  likewise  will  his  tools,  temporal  and 
spiritual,  adapt  themselves  to  the  interior  require- 
ments and  the  laws  by  which  his  whole  being  moves 
on  and  unfolds. 

So  deeply  doth  this  Divine  law  of  our  existence 
and  unfoldment  penetrate  into  the  order  of  our  life 

174 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

forces — ^these  infinite  differentiations  and  correspon- 
dencies— that  even  in  matters  of  our  temporal  goods 
it  has  become  a  matter  of  common  observation  that 
"one  man's  food  is  another's  poison — though  very 
few  have  as  yet  gotten  over  the  habit  of  importun- 
ing his  neighbor  to  eat  a  little  of  what  agrees  so  well 
with  himself.  Herein  is  to  be  found  one  of  the  great- 
est sources  of  inharmony  among  mankind;  indeed, 
probably  the  very  greatest,  when  we  consider  the 
social,  religious,  and  even  the  civil,  antagonisms  that 
exist  among  men.  It  springs  from  what  to  the  ma- 
terial or  infant  understanding  appears  as  the  perfect 
simplicity  of  Truth,  and  its  lack  of  diversity  in 
human  uses  and  needs.  "The  mind  sees  only  that 
which  it  brings  with  it  the  power  to  see." 

Every  soul  is  so  constituted  as  to  occupy  a  differ- 
ent standpoint  of  both  longitude  and  latitude  upon 
the  spiritual  earth ;  and,  hence,  views  the  whole  spirit- 
ual Heavens  under  a  different  aspect. 


PROGRESSIONS. 


What  is  little  Grecia,  the  founder  of  the  arts, 
sciences,  philosophies  and  democracies  in  their  more 
primitive  and  embryonic  forms?  And  what  is  Rome, 
chosen  by  Divine  Providence  also  to  play  its  part 
in  the  great  drama  of  civilization  to  represent  law — 
civil,  social,  religious,  political — yea,  to  give  law  to 
Christianity  itself  in  all  its  primeval  and  more  rudi- 
mentary forms,  ceremonies  and  doctrmals?  What 
are  these  but  coins  of  the  different  races  of  man- 
kind, cut  in  different  ages  from  the  original  paternal, 
tree  of  Ayrian  stock  and  grafted  into  the  ruder  and 
more  primitive  races  that  dwelt  in  the  beautiful 
vales  of  Italy  and  of  Greece.  What  was  little  Judea? 
What  were  all  these  glorious  countries  and  their 
peoples   but  a  trinity  of  spiritual  kindergartens— 

175 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

nurseries  where  the  Celestial  Creative  gardeners  of 
the  spiritual  heavens,  who  superintend  and  direct 
the  forces  of  civilization,  had  planted,  cultivated  and 
developed  these  germs  of  spiritual  truth  and  life  that 
were  first  to  prepare  the  way  for  Jesus  and  his  word, 
but  were  afterward  to  undergo  a  second  incarnation 
in  the  spiritual  womb  of  the  mighty  mother  church 
of  Rome  to  properly  gestate  the  infantile  and  even 
the  larval*  man  of  those  times,  which  she  received  at 
the  hands  of  barbarians  that  overran  Italy  and 
Greece  so  often  during  the  early  ages  of  Christianity. 
"Rome,"  as  was  well  said  by  the  historian  Froude, 
"Rome  is  the  most  marvelous  institution  that  hu- 
manity ever  threw  out  of  itself."  It  gave  law  and 
perfect  form  to  all  things  concerning  life  and  its 
priesthood  became  the  spiritual  nurse  of  mankind 
and  decided  for  it  what  was  proper,  spiritual  food  for 
its  spiritual  babies.  In  doing  this  her  priesthood  and 
the  later  priesthoods  of  Protestantism  have  con- 
ferred an  infinite  benefit  on  the  entire  race  of  man ; 
and  none  the  less  for  their  suppression  of  the  mani- 
fold little  sects  and  sectlets  that  have  attempted  to 
come  upon  the  stage  of  time  since  Christianity  came, 
much  to  its  advantage,  and  with  a  vast  saving  of 
blood  for  all  Europe.  , 

Had  the  political  feudalisms  that  grew  up  all  over 
Europe  been  allowed  by  Rome  to  be  reinforced  by  a 
multitude  of  religious  feudalisms,  the  blood  that 
would  have  been  shed  to  get  rid  of  them  would  have 
been  vastly  greater  than  it  has  cost  mankind  to  pre- 
vent their  formation.  And  this  has  been  one  of  the 
offices  and  duties  of  the  Romish  church,  to  suppress 
the  religious  cranks  (most  of  them)  nipping  them 
well  in  the  bud.  It  has  greatly  facilitated  the  forma- 
tion of  the  great  nationalities  of  Europe  under  com- 
mon languages,  a  common  religion  and  a  common 

*  Nearly  all  the  very  lowest  races  of  mankind  today  are 
little  else  than  spiritual  larvae  of  men  and  will  be  obHged 
to  pass  through  the  spiritual  womb  of  the  churches  to 
enable  them  to  ascend  into  the  spiritual,  rational  and  ce- 
lestial planes  of  being. 

176 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

civilization.  In  the  formulation  of  the  religions  of 
mankind  Rome  has  done  for  modern  civilization 
what  the  Jewish  priesthood  has  done  for  that  people 
that  gave  Christ  to  the  world.  The  high  spiritual 
truths  taught  by  Jesus  were  most  of  them  out  of 
the  spiritual  reach  of  the  greater  portions  of  man- 
kind of  his  times.  They  were  too  strong  meat  for 
their  spiritual  digestion  and  assimilation  and  had  to 
be  run  through  the  spiritual  laboratory  of  the  priest- 
hood to  have  them  prepare  such  foods  for  these 
moral  and  spiritual  babies  as  they  could  properly 
masticate,  digest  and  assimilate  to  their  infantile 
systems.  Jesus  himself  recognized  this  spiritual  in- 
ability of  the  men  of  his  time — even  the  learned  men 
of  the  Jewish  church.  "They,  seeing,  see  not,  and 
hearing,  hear  not,  neither  do  they  understand,"  and 
some  times  reproved  his  own  disciples  for  their 
lack  of  spiritual  perception. 

Regarding  the  division  of  the  church  in  later 
years  into  several  leading  branches  that  also  is  a  wise 
arrangement  of  Divine  Providence,  better  fitting  it 
for  its  divine  uses,  giving  the  human  intelligence 
greater  freedom  of  action  by  better  adapting  it  to 
the  various  mental  and  spiritual  estates  into  which 
that  intelligence  naturally  differentiates  itself. 


SCRAPS  OF  TRUTH. 


It  requires  vast  time  for  Nature  to  build  up  a  man, 
beginning  with  the  slime  of  old  Mother  Ocean — "pro- 
toplasm" as  it  is  termed  by  science — and  "dust  of  the 
earth"  as  it  is  called  bv  Moses  in  Genesis.  But  it  does 
not  demand  a  tithe  of  the  time  that  is  required  to  build 
a  Darwinian  man  .     . 

The  "Day*  that  is  spoken  of  in  Genesis  is  not  one  of 
twenty-four  hours,  as  there  are  various  forms  and 
lengths  of  days  that  are  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  which 

177 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

are  cycles  of  time,  cosmic  in  character,  and  are  termed 
*'days"  bcause  they  fulfill  certain  correspondential 
relations  with  each  other  and  also  by  reason  of  the 
poverty  of  language,  which  is  not  rich  enough  to  detail 
a  new  word  for  every  phasis  of  meaning  in  the  uses  of 
words,  and  hence  employs  the  same  word  often  for 
manifold  phases  of  the  same  idea,  and  for  ideas  wholly 
dissimilar  often.  In  the  Apocalypse  of  John  and  also 
in  the  prophet  Daniel  the  word  "day"  is  used  to  em- 
brace a  cycle  or  period  of  365  ordinary  days  of  twenty- 
four  hours,  while  in  another  place  it  is  declared  that 
"one  day  with  the  Lord  is  as  a  thousand  years :  and  a 
thousand  years  as  one  day/' 

The  ''day"  spoken  of  in  the  first  chapters  of  Gene- 
sis comprehends  a  geological  cycle  or  day  of  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  our  years.  It  is  a  geo- 
logical cycle  which  is  the  longest  of  the  cycles 
spoken  of  in  the  Bible,  and  may  have  been  made  use 
of  in  this  occult  form  and  way  to  help  maintain  this 
beautiful  allegory  in  its  present  mythical  form  until 
science  had  arrived  upon  the  stage  of  time  and  world : 
and  the  scientific  mind  also.  This  would  make  the 
entire  period  required  to  build  up  the  plant  and  ani- 
mal life  of  the  world  about  4,500,000  of  our  years — an 
ample  time  for  this  part  of  the  labors  of  creation  if 
we  cast  overboard  the  absurd  and  wholly  untenable 
theory  of  Mr.  Darwin  with  its  infinitesimal  increments 
of  change,  and  adopt  the  more  perfect  and  scientific 
one  everywhere  to  be  seen  in  the  world  about  us,  and 
held  by  such  great  scientists  as  Culver,  Agassiz,  Liebig 
and  others,  certainly  quite  as  great  and  distinguished 
in  the  same  department  of  natural  history  and  kin- 
dred fields  of  investigations  as  was  Mr.  Darwin  him- 
self. 

If  we  can  accept  this  statement  of  the  time  that 
was  taken  by  the  creative  intelligences  in  the  work  of 
developing  the  planet  and  the  animal  life  of  the  planet, 
and  then  backward  and  contemplating  the  still  vaster 
periods  of  time  that  must  have  been  required  to 
build  up  the  nucleus  of  the  planet,  cool  down  its  enor- 
mous heat,  and  lay  down  its  manifold  strata,  we  should 

178 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

likely  approximate  a  period  of  time  nearly  if  not  quite 
equal  to  the  period  of  time  recently  assigned  to  the  age 
of  the  planet  by  Lord  Kelvin,  who  placed  it  at  about 
twenty  millions  of  years — which,  though  in  truth  it 
be  a  vast  period  of  time  for  actual  creative  work,  it 
is,  notwithstanding,  but  a  brief  space  of  time  when  it 
is  compared  with  the  time  of  three  hundred  millions 
of  years,  which  Mr.  Darwin  assigned  to  the  work 
accomplished  by  the  waves  in  triturating  and  wearing 
down  a  certain  portion  of  the  Walden  range  of  moun- 
tains on  the  coast  of  England. 

The  truth  is  that  scientists  are  reading  better  the 
wonderful  story  of  the  rocks  and  at  the  same  time  are 
meeting  with  a  new  class  of  facts  which  they  cannot 
so  easily  bend  to  their  theories  as  many  of  those  upon 
which  they  depended  to  sustain  their  theories,  many  of 
them  now  well  known  to  be  false. 

Newer  views,  truer  views  and  more  telling  facts 
have  upset  already  many  of  these  false  theories  of 
creation  that  have  been  advanced  by  the  materialists ; 
and  many  others  are  destined  to  follow  them ;  and 
hence  the  opinion  of  Lord  Kelvin,  one  of  the  highest 
if  not  the  very  highest  of  them  all  in  his  department 
of  science. 

Recently  a  gentleman  who  has  for  years  made  a 
close  study  of  Mt.  Pelee  and  its  terrible  work  of 
destruction  of  the  lovely  little  city  located  at  its  base, 
brings  back  the  report  that  all  vestige  of  the  place 
has  been  totally  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  and 
that  the  earth  on  which  the  city  formerly  stood  is 
covered  with  a  vast  bed  of  lava,  fast  changing  into 
granite! 


INDIA. 

Poor  India!  The  true  Niobe  of  nations.  For 
thousands  of  years  prostrate  beneath  the  feet  of 
the  animal  world  and   best  illustrative  among  the 

179 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

nations  of  the  relations  of  man  to  the  animal  world 
in  which  he  was  gestated,  and  out  of  which  he 
sprang.  In  this  function  assigned  to  that  people  by 
the  Creative  Wisdoms,  of  illustrating  in  life  and  in 
history.  He  has  done  so  both  in  normal  and  abnor- 
mal conditions  and  degrees.  There  is  nothing  so 
low  in  the  scale  of  being  that  he  does  not  acknowl- 
edge him  as  a  brother  and  literally  treats  him  as 
such.  It  is  not  any  mere  ideal  spiritual  relation  ex- 
isting between  man  and  his  inferior  brother  in  the 
lower  realms  of  being,  but  a  literal  and  eternal  truth 
that  he  feels  himself  obliged  to  observe  in  manifold 
ways,  in  his  intercourse  with  the  citizens  of  the  great 
primitive  under-world  of  animated  life.  It  is  no 
whim  or  caprice  of  his  that  has  caused  him  to  ob- 
serve the  sacred  law  of  relationship  that  exists  be- 
tween man  and  the  antecedent  forms  of  life  below; 
him ;  it  is  due  to  the  part  and  office  so  assigned  him 
by  the  Great  Architect  in  His  original  distribution 
of  the  organs  and  functions  of  the  Divine  Humanity 
among  the  races  and  nations  of  the  world. 

Allied  closely  with  the  Jew  in  racial  conditions, 
and  destined,  like  him,  to  illustrate  the  sacrificial 
functions  that  symbolize  the  methods  of  procedure 
by  which  he  ascends  from  the  feebly  and  partially 
united  forms  of  the  individual  man  up  into  the  divine 
integration  of  the  social  man  in  the  Divine  Human- 
ity— the  Cosmic  man — the  two  people  have  been 
called  to  perform  both  opposite  and  reciprocal  func- 
tions. 

Both  have  performed  "blood  sacrifices."  But  while 
the  Jew  has  sacrificed  the  animal,  the  Hindu  has  sac- 
rificed himself — ^yea,  and  herself.  Witness  the  fu- 
neral pyre  where  untold  thousands  of  widows  an- 
nually went  up  in  flames;  the  Ganges,  where  great 
numbers  of  infants  were  thrown  to  the  crocodiles, 
and  the  thousands  otherwise  sacrificed  to  wild 
beasts. 

Each  people  symbolizes  the  living  eternal  facts 
and  forces  that  play  throughout  in  the  infinite  thea- 
ter of  Universal  Life ;  but  each  represent  these  forces 

i8o 


MAN'S  TL'ACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

and  their  symbols  under  different  conditions  and  as- 
pects. The  Hindu,  as  we  have  said,  makes  a  sacri- 
fice of  himself.  He  represents  in  symbolic  forms,  not 
only  the  principle  of  self-sacrifice,  but  of  self-salva- 
tion. 

When  the  human  mind  has  arrived  upon  the  plane 
of  reflection,  self-study,  self-knowledge,  man  then 
becomes  sufficiently  intelligent  to  co-operate  with 
the  celestial,  man-building,  world-building  forces  of 
Universal  Life,  and  to  assist  them  in  the  work  of 
self-evolution,  self-building  and  rebuilding,  so  far 
as  that  principle  can  be  carried  out  by  the  individual 
alone.  But  in  truth  that  ability  of  self  help  is  small 
until  he  reaches  a  very  high  plane. 

The  Hindu,  more  than  any  of  the  primitive  relig- 
ious cult  races,  represents  the  important  principle 
in  human  life.  It  is  the  principle  also  of  Individual- 
ism put  into  the  self-evolving  and  differentiating 
forces.  But  carried  to  its  logical  results  it  necessarily, 
in  his  case,  arrays  society  into  four  great  castes  or 
classes  whose  walls  of  separation  are  as  impenetrable 
as  the  everlasting  rock.  It  is  the  stoical  or  male 
form  of  Wisdom  with  no  proper  co-operation  with 
the  feminine  principle  of  Love.  And  hence  Theoso- 
phy  is  very  properly  termed  the  Wisdom  (mascu- 
line) religion. 

Buddha,  Socrates,  Confucius,  and  many  other 
great  Avatars,*  taught  the  religion  of  the  head. 
Christ,  the  last  and  greatest  of  them  all,  taught  the 
philosophy  of  the  heart.  The  former  taught  the  re- 
ligion of  the  rational  understanding  as  applied  to 
morals  and  materials.  The  office  of  Christ  was  to 
teach  the  religion  of  Love,  of  the  Spiritual  under- 
standing of  Sociology,  of  the  Paternity  of  God  and 
the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 


*  Avatar. — Literally  one  sent  by  and  from  tHe  Father- 
hood or  Vatara: — ^to  teach  mankind. 

i8i 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 


THE  METAPHYSIOLOGY  OF  THE 
SPIRITUAL  MAN. 

Saith  Paul:  "There  is  a  natural  body,  and  there 
is  a  spiritual  body."  How  Paul  came  in  possession 
of  so  occult  an  ontological  fact,  in  an  age  and  coun- 
try so  densely  ignorant  and  materialistic,  we  do  not 
know,  but  imagine  it  came  to  him  more  as  a  spirit- 
ually inspired  truth,  rather  than  from  any  constant 
rational  perception  of  so  important  a  spiritual  prin- 
ciple, in  all  scientific  and  logical  bearings  and  re- 
sults. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  there  is  in  deed  and  truth  a 
wonderful  analogy  and  correspondence  between  the 
two  organisms.  As  the  mollusk  secretes  within  its 
more  interior  and  delicate  organs  the  material  of 
which  its  external  shell  or  house  is  formed,  and 
which,  with  an  art  divinely  cunning,  it  weaves  about 
itself;  as  the  tree  clothes  itself  roundabout  with  the 
rough  covering  of  bark,  to  protect  the  more  delicate 
sap  vessels  of  the  interior;  so,  in  like  manner,  doth 
that  divinest  artificer,  the  spiritual  man,  sit  back  be- 
hind the  so-called  "visible"  and  fabricate  that  really 
wonderful  house  we  term  "natural  body,"  which, 
though  of  apparently  coarser  texture  and  mold  than 
is  the  spiritual  body,  it  is  designed  to  nourish  and 
protect,  is,  nevertheless,  in  shape  like  unto  it,  and  in 
«titself  is  a  marvel  of  design  and  beauty,  when  perfect- 
ed ;  and  is  well  adapted,  in  all  respects,  to  minister 
to  the  needs  of  the  living  artist  that  sits  within  and 
weaves  it  in  the  loom  of  Time.  In  real  truth,  this 
terrestrial  house,  in  which  man  temporarily  resides, 
fulfills  the  still  more  important  function  of  a  labora- 
tory or  stomach,  in  which  he  digests,  and  elaborates 
the  forces  of  this  terrestrial  plane  of  being,  as  the 
basic  elements  of  the  spiritual  and  spiritual-celestial 
body. 

Matter  is  only  the  name  of  one  of  these  basic  forces 
that  sustain  the  universe  of  Being,  and  the  grossness 

182 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS.  ' 

of  it  consists  mainly  in  the  grossness  of  our  ideas  re- 
garding it.  It  externalizes  itself,  or,  more  strictly 
speaking,  the  higher  forces  externalize  themselves 
through  matter  in  three  dimensions ;  but  the  higher 
forces  operate  within,  in  a  '^fourth  dimension"  (of 
Prof.  Zollner),  as  the  shaft  works  in  the  slot,  the 
hand  in  the  glove. 

It  is  by  and  through  this  fourth  dimension  that 
the  celestial-spiritual  man,  after  one  of  his  long 
flights  through  the  eternities  and  infinities  of  time 
and  space,  descends  ("falls")  into  terrestrial  states 
and  forces — even  descends  into  the  Hells — to  re- 
build, renew,  refresh,  re-incarnate  and  more  fully 
eternize  his  spiritual-celestial  body. 

As  the  external  body  has  parts,  organs,  functions, 
so  has  the  spiritual  body;  and  in  the  true  spiritual- 
celestial  man  and  woman,  as  distinguished  from  the 
lower  or  animal  man,  which  is  not  in  itself  subject 
to  the  laws  of  spiritual  good  or  God,  until  similiated 
and  harmonized  with  and  by  the  higher  or  spiritual 
man,  it  becomes  of  the  highest  order  both  in  sub- 
stance and  in  form,  being  wrought  out  from  the 
highest,  holiest  loves,  affections,  truths,  principles 
of  the  spiritual  worlds. 

"The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy,"  for  the 
reason  that  his  body  is  developed  out  of  the  animal 
kingdom  below  him,  and  on  the  terrestrial  plane  of 
being,  and  partly  out  of  the  mundane  forces,  by  the 
Creative  Intelligences;  and  it  is  designed  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  a  ready  made  house  to  live  in ;  a  ready 
made  garment  to  clothe  himself  withal ;  and  a  ready 
made  laboratory  to  aid  him  in  the  easy  elaboration 
of  those  elemental  forces  with  which  he  is  to  re- 
clothe,  rebuild  and  refurnish  his  more  permanent 
home — the  more  Divine,  precious  and  holy,  eternal, 
spiritual-celestial  man — the  Man-God. 

Man  as  to  his  foods  is  an  omnivorous  being.  He 
is  not  only  a  plant. eater  but  an  eater  of  animals,  in 
some  phases  of  his  manifold  being.  Both  the  plant 
and  the  animal  have  previously  passed  the  elemental 
forces  and  foods  of  the  material  world  through  the 

183 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

refining  and  reconstructive  processes  of  tHeir  own 
digestive  organs,  thereby  raising  these  elementary- 
forces  to  a  higher  organic  level  before  being  used  by 
the  animal  man. 

Now,  he  lives  upon  the  higher  spiritual-social  and 
spiritual-celestial  forms,  foods  and  forces  in  a  some^- 
what  similar  manner.  Every  soul  with  whom  he  is 
brought  into  touch  in  the  Divine  harmonies  in  spirit- 
ual social  life,  is  engaged  in  the  labor  of  eating,  di- 
gesting, elaborating  spiritual  truths,  foods,  forces,  in 
the  laboratory  of  his  own  interior,  spiritual  being, 
and  elevating  these  spiritual  foods  to  still  higher 
food  levels.  Yea,  all  true  spiritual  men  eat  one  an- 
other— impart  to  each  other  their  spiritual  blood 
(loves)  and  spiritual  flesh  (wisdoms)  to  nourish,  up- 
build and  sustain  each  other. 

It  is  by  these  Divine  offices  of  imparting  each  to 
the  other  and  to  all,  in  a  degree,  these  Divine,  so- 
cial-spiritual foods,  by  ways,  words  and  works  of 
love  and  use,  and  by  eating  one  another  mutually 
and  functionally,  that  the  social,  spiritual-celestial 
man  is  made  to  otherize  himself — to  build  himself 
into  his  entire  social  environment  of  souls  and  into 
the  higher  societies  of  the  spiritual  and  celestial  uni- 
verses of  God. 

.  .  .  "That  they  all  may  be  one :  as  thou  Father 
art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in 
us," — thus  not  only  making  the  terrestro-social  man 
one  in  spiritual  life  with  his  fellows  but  one  and  at- 
one with  the  higher  celestial  men  and  women  of  the 
spiritual  worlds,  for  in  very  truth,  when  properly 
discerned,  this  is  the  great  "Atonement," — ^the  Son 
with  the  Father, — the  Brotherhood  of  Man  with  the 
Fatherhood  of  God. 


184 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


THE  SOLAR-SPIRITUAL  WORLDS  THAT 
.  *     SURROUND  OUR  STAR— THE  SUN. 

•  Not  long  since  the  beloved  Seer,  Swedenborg, 
came  to  me  and  informed  me  that  the  Zodiacal  Light 
—which  is  a  wonderful  zone  or  belt  of  bright  light 
that  invests  the  solar  orb  on  all  sides  of  it — is  the 
basis,  the  foundation  of  our  permanent  Spiritual 
Heavens.  This  bright  and  beautiful  body  is  often 
visible  for  some  time  after  the  sun  has  set  and  for  a 
time,  also,  in  the  morning  before  he  rises, — visible 
to  the  naked  eye  of  man, — and  especially  during 
the  winter  season,  in  very  cold  weather,  when  the 
earth's  atmosphere  is  more  transparent  and  clear 
than  ordinary. 

Astronomers  have  for  a  long  time  indulged  in 
much  controversy  and  speculation  as  to  what  this 
remarkable  phenomenon  is  due ;  of  what  composed, 
etc.,  etc. 

Speaking  of  its  extent  Prof.  Swift,  of  the  Lowe 
Observatory,  says:  "It  seems  to  surround  the  sun, 
but  there  is  evidence  that  it  has  been  seen,  in  the 
winter,  stretching  across  the  sky  to  the  Eastern  hori- 
zon. If  this  be  so,  then  it  also  surrounds  the  earth, 
and  the  diameter  of  the  ring  must  be  at  least  two 
hundred  millions  of  miles.  I  have  twice  seen  it  reach 
to  the  Eastern  horizon.  It  appears  to  be  the  shape  of 
a  double  convex  lens^  the  center  of  which  is  the 
sun." 

Astronomers  give  us  no  idea  of  the  width  of  this 
wonderful  body,  but  Swedenborg  states  that  it  and 
the  corresponding  width  of  the  many  concentric 
spheres  or  Spiritual  Heavens  that  surround  the  solar 
orb  are  about  five  hundred  thousand  miles  each  in 
width,  and  that  it  extends  outward  into  space  far 
enough  to  include  the  farthest  planet,  or  Neptune 
as  astronomers  reckon,  though  the  Celestials  speak 
of  three  others. 

I  will  not  stop  here  to  discuss  the  composition  of 

185 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

this  singular  body,  Y^hich  astronomers  generally  re- 
gard as  rather  of  a  material  character,  but  which 
Swedenborg  and  other  celestial  astronomers  assert 
that  it  is  magnetic. 

He  informs  me  that  the  first  or  lowest  spiritual 
sun-sphere  is  located  about  half  a  million  miles  from 
the  solar  orb,  and  passing  outward  beyond  this  the 
various  spiritual  and  spiritual-celestial  sun-spheres 
are  severally  situated,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  to  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand 
miles  distant  from  each  other ;  and  that  those  which 
are  already  more  or  less  inhabited  are  about  fifty  in 
number;  but  these  do  not  include  all  that  are  more 
or  less  perfect  in  their  natural  formation,  as  these 
extend  very  nearly  as  far  out  as  our  planet  Mercury. 
They  extend  a  good  way  farther  out  than  our  planet 
earth.  Buj:  such  are  only  in  a  partial  state  of  evolu- 
tion and  will  require  a  much  greater  time  to  prepare 
them  for  the  advent  and  the  occupancy  of  spiritual 
man. 

He  states  that  ere  our  race  have  fully  graduated 
from  the  material  worlds  of  our  solar  system  these 
spiritual  spheres  of  this  portion  of  the  spiritual  Hea- 
vens will  be  extended  to  the  utmost  limit  of  the 
solar  system,  and  will  then  have  wholly  taken  the 
places  of  the  several  spiritual  Heavens  that  invest 
the  various  planetary  orbs  that  form  our  system. 
These  minor  spiritual  Heavens  are,  like  the  material 
worlds  thmselves,  but  temporary  places  of  residence 
— preliminary  schools  of  training  for  the  higher  and 
final  states  and  residences  of  the  spiritual  men.  That 
when  the  inhabitants  of  our  spiritual-solar  orb  or 
system  of  orbs  have  fulfilled  their  law  of  involution 
and  evolution  into  and  out  of  the  realm  of  matter, 
so-called, — which  is  the  negative  pole  of  the  Univer- 
coelum — ^by  what  is  termed  Re-incarnation,  the  ma- 
terial worlds  including  the  great  sun  himself  will 
become  dead  worlds.  The  spiritual  worlds  will 
throw  them  off  as  a  man  casts  off  his  material  body 
when  he  no  longer  requires  it,  and  the  material, 

i86 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

worlds  will  be  taken  out  into  space  and  exploded  into 
nebulous  or  cosmic  matter. 

The  spiritual  intelligences  informed  me  of  this 
final  destiny  of  the  suns,  about  the  time  I  published 
the  "Evolution  of  the  Psyche,"  but  I  did  not  pub- 
lish the  statement  at  the  time  as  I  had  no  confirma- 
tory data  to  print  with  it.  But  as  I  have  recently 
fallen  in  with  a  remarkable  description  of  the  death 
of  a  world,  by  Prof.  E.  S.  Holden,  of  the  Lick  Ob- 
servatory, I  will  give  it  in  this  place.    I  quote : 

"The  object  of  this  paper  is  to  detail  the  history 
of  the  remarkable  *new  star,'  of  1892,  in  the  constel- 
lation Auriga.  This  star,  which  doubtless  resembles 
our  sun,  within  two  days  increased  in  brilliancy  six- 
teen fold.  Three  months  after  its  discovery  it  had 
become  invisible!  After  another  four  months  it  re- 
appeared and  was  comparatively  bright.  But  it  was 
no  longer  a  star,  but  a  nebulal  In  other  words,  it 
had  developed  changes  of  light  and  heat  which  if 
repeated  in  the  case  of  our  own  sun  would  mean  a 
quick  end  of  the  human  race  and  the  utter  annhila- 
tion  of  every  vestige  of  animal  and  other  life  upon 
earth !" 

Yes;  and  of  all  hfe  uj^on  all  His  worlds!  But  of 
this  at  another  time.   Prof.  Holden  concludes : 

"The  results  are  of  intense  popular  interest,  as  we 
have  seen.  Our  sun  is  a  star. 

"In  studying  the  birth,  death  and  resurrection  of 
other  stars  we  may  be  studying  the  past  and  future 
of  our  own  sun,  and,  hence,  be  learning  somewhat 
of  the  possible  catastrophes  that  may  overtake  the 
earth.* 


*  There  are  no  catastrophes  in  Hie  life  of  God's  great 
universe.  All  things,  including  the  worlds,  are  governed 
and  guided  by  the  same  hand  that  made  them — by  fixed 
immutable  eternal  laws.  But  what  are  the  laws  but  the 
modus  Vivendi  of  the  Divine  Being  himself,  who  lives  in, 
animates,  moves  and  direct?  the  \vorlds  and  all  their  con- 
tainments with  n^snliite  and  unerring  certainty  and  mak- 
eth  no  mishaps  or  nii^ftakos.    To  one  who  has  perfect  con- 

1^7 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS 

"Such  catastrophes  as  produced  the  new  star  are 
indeed  rare.  I  do  not  know  that  their  study  is  espe- 
cially comforting  to  the  human  race.  A  new  celes- 
tial body  is  born  of  them  which,  by  its  evolution, 
may  produce  a  solar  system  like  our  own.  But  it 
was  produced  at  the  sacrifice  of  a  previous  system 
intrinsically  as  precious  so  one  might  say.  But  in 
the  absence  of  definite  knowledge,  we  have  the  right 
to  assume  that  one  universe  is  as  good  as  another. 
In  this  case  one  universe  was  totally  destroyed ;  and 
on  its  ruins  another  may  rise !" 

Recently— on  the  4th  of  last  June — there  fell  a 
very  interesting  specimen  of  cosmic  matter  near 
Effingham  in  the  state  of  Kansas ;  one  weighing  two 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  and  made  up  of  iron  and 
pebbles. 

What  a  "strange  eventful  history"  could  this 
messenger  from  the  skies,  this  fragment  of  a  world, 
bring  to  us  if  it  could  repeat  the  whole  story  of  its 
experiences.  Who  shall  say  through  what  distant, 
unknown  portion  of  the  vast  realms  of  space  the 
world,  of  which  this  tiny  fragment  was  a  part,  ful- 
filled its  mighty  orbit ;  what  may  have  been  the  fate 
of  its  inhabitants ;  and  when  did  it  come  to  its  end  ? 

Many  of  the  strata  of  our  own  world  are  largely 
made  up  /from  these  cosmic  materials  that  have  been 
captured  by  the  comets,  which  are  the  "common 
carriers"  of  space,  and  brought  hither  to  our  world 
when  its  "crust"  was  being  formed. 

But  all  worlds  are  not  subject  to  the  same  vicis- 
situdes; none  of  them  until  they  have  fulfilled  the 
full  measure  of  their  years  and  the  utmost  limit  of 
their  usefulness. 

Our  own  satellite  or  moon  is  an  example  of  a 
worldlet  that  is  yet  in  its  infancy;  a  mere  nucleus 
or  skeleton  of  a  world  center,  not  yet  clothed  upon 


fidence  in  the  wisdom,  power  and  goodness  of  the  Supreme 
Being  there  is  no  field  for  the  operations  of  Chance,  Ca- 
price, Chaos  or  Devil.  All  things  whatsoever  are  destin- 
ated,  controlled  and  guided  by  His  Almighty  hand. 

188 


MAN*S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

with  proper  strata  nor  yet  with  seas  and  an  atmo- 
sphere. Our  own  earth  will  yet  become  a  sun,  but 
not  until  it  has  performed  its  full  routine  of  uses  as 
a  nursery  for  human  beings ;  has  been  re-incarnated 
again  and  again  for  this  purpose,  and  has  become, 
like  Saturn  and  Jupiter,  surrounded  by  a  retinue 
of  worldlets  and  worlds.  For  worlds  are  born,  live 
and  grow,  through  vast  periods  of  time,  fulfill  their 
Divine  uses  in  the  economy  of  the  universe  and  die. 
It  is  the  law  of  all  created  beings ! 


THE  CELESTIAL  CITY. 

"And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of 
the  moon,  for  the  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it !" 

With  our  present  conceptions  of  the  origin  of 
light,  of  heat,  and  in  truth  of  all  the  vis  vivae  of  Uni- 
versal Life,  no  more  perfect  description  than  the 
above  could  be  given  of  the  source  of  the  light  that 
illuminates,  delights  and  glorifies  the  Eternal  City. 

But  perhaps  the  greatest  difficulty  one  encounters 
in  attempting  to  describe  and  define  the  things  of 
the  occult  and — to  the  merely  five-sensed  man — 
the  "invisible"  realms  of  the  spiritual  worlds  that 
inhabit  space,  lies  in  the  fact  that  living  as  he  con- 
stantly does  only  within  that  exterior  realm  of  Na- 
ture, where  the  five  senses  are  forever  at  play,  and 
where  he  is  eternally  bombarded  by  her  material, 
three-dimensioned  forces,  he  finds  it  quite  impos- 
sible to  sense,  much  less  to  "see"  and  to  realize,  the 
superb  realities  and  magnitudes  of  the  spiritual  uni- 
verses, revealed  only  to  such  as  have  advanced  into 
the  spiritual  consciousness  of  Life,  and,  hence,  abide 
more  or  less  within  the  realms  where  the  sixth  and 
the  seventh  senses  have  play. 

To  one  who  lives  too  much  In  the  mire  of  the  five- 
sensed  realm  of  eternal  Life,  the  things  of  the  mind, 

189 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

and  of  the  whole  realm  of  spiritual  life  appear  to 
him  as  unrealities,  or  as  things  he  has  been  taught 
by  the  dicta  of  pseudo-science  to  regard  as  only  the 
"affections  of  matter," — a  phrase  well  designed  to 
conceal  the  confessed  ignorance  of  Agnosticism, 
which,  while  confessing  to  complete  nescience  upon, 
all  the  great  questions  that  concern  the  things  of 
the  occult  and  invisible  worlds,  at  the  same  time 
often  displays  an  arrogance  and  intolerance  toward 
those  who  profess  belief  in  the  occult  that  is  sur- 
prising, and  parades  its  own  confessed  ignorance  of 
all  knowledge  of  occult  beings  as  proof  positive  that 
they  neither  exist  nor  can  make  themselves  mani- 
fest. But  this  is  nothing  more  than  the  tyranny  of 
the  five  senses  transferred  to  the  realm  of  mind,  by 
which  it  becomes  subject  to  their  illusions ;  for  even 
the  spiritual,  or  seven-sensed,  man  beconies  more  or 
less  subject  to  the  illusions  and  tyrannies  of  the  five 
senses. 

The  main  difficulty  with  those  living  chiefly  in 
the  five-sensed  and  three-dimensioned  realm  of  be- 
ing, consists  mainly  in  their  inability  to  conceive  of 
any  thing  that  can  have  a  separate  and  a  greater  or 
less  independent  existence  outside  of  and  beyond 
the  "visible/'  tangible,  temporal  and  so-called  ma- 
terial forms  of  Life.  Especially  is  it  true  when  any 
attempt  is  made  to  give  to  these  subtle  and  fluidic 
forces  an  organic  and  substantial  shape. 

To  the  mind,  however,  that  hath  lived  somewhat 
in  the  realm  of  the  occult  and  the  invisible,  whose 
spiritual  sight  hath  been  quickened  and  made  clear 
by  the  Celestial  Euphrasia,  the  whole  environing 
universe  becomes  a  vast  living  Entity,  formulated 
in  time,  space,  form,  substance,  essence,  force,  di- 
mensions (within  and  without),  eternities  and  in- 
finities— a  Being  that  is  spiritually  nej-ved,  muscled, 
ligamented,  and  animated  throughout  by  the  Celes- 
tial forms,  forces,  essences,  melodies,  harmonies  and 
numbers ;  and  that  the  visible  and  tangible  worlds — 
the  suns  and  all  their  vast  retinues  of  worlds  and 
worldlets  that  inhabit  space — are  but  the  fulcrums 

190 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

upon  which  the  Gods  rest  their  vast  levers ;  the  foot- 
stools upon  which  they  place  their  blessed  feet ;  the 
pulleys  and  the  coarse  tackle  through  which  the  more 
subtle  and  refined  forms  and  forces  of  the  universe 
play  the  infinite  game  of  Living. 

For  in  very  deed  and  truth  the  material  worlds  so 
infinitely  multitudinous  and  magnificent  as  they  are 
to  the  eye  of  the  astronomer,  and  separated  as  they 
are  from  each  other  by  such  amazing  distances,  are 
but  the  merest  atoms  in  this  infinite  ocean  of  Life, 
when  we  compare  them  with  the  vast  spiritual 
worlds  with  their  more  infinite  dimensions,  spaces, 
forms,  potencies,  splendors  and  harmonies,  that  in- 
vest them  on  every  side  and  occupy  their  vast  inter- 
spaces to  complete  the  Divine  fullness  and  perfec- 
tion of  the  Infinite  Life. 

Our  material  sun,  so-called,  is  in  truth  a  vast 
world,  eight  hundred  and  sixty-six  thousand  miles 
in  diameter.  Beneath  this  vast  photosphere,  calori- 
sphere  and  other  atmospheres  with  which  he  invests 
himself  to  the  height  and  depth  of  twenty-five  thou- 
sand miles  on  every  side  of  him,  there  is  a  solid, 
substantial  world  nearly  eight  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  miles  in  diameter,  and  inhabited  by  billions 
of  the  great  universal  family  of  man,  living  in  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  estates  far  in  advance  of  those 
occupying  our  own  little  world.  Indeed  many  of 
them  have  been  our  instructors,  as  have  many  of  the 
advanced  teachers  of  some  of  the  larger  planets. 

Our  sun  has  more  than  fifty  times  the  area  upon 
his  solid  globe  of  all  his  planets  that  he  bears  along 
with  him  in  his  sublime  march  through  life — not 
mere  empty  space,  and  it  would  indeed  be  a  vast 
waste  of  opportunity  for  the  Creator  to  let  it  remain 
forever  a  desert  waste,  when  He  is  so  careful  to 
establish  life  everywhere  apparently,  even  among 
the  snows  of  the  Arctic  world.  His  photospheres, 
calorispheres  and  magnetospheres  instead  of  being 
so  intensely  heated  as  to  destroy  all  surrounding  life, 
do  but  generate  a  sufficient  warmth  to  impart  life 
and  well  being  to  all  his  inhabitants,  and  by  an 

191 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

electrical  transfer,  as  with  our  terrestrial  telephones 
and  telegraphs,  he  is  enabled  to  excite  in  the  various 
atmospheres  of  his  attendant  worlds  those  condi- 
tions or  states  by  which  their  several  atmospheres 
are  enabled  to  generate  the  light  and  heat  with 
which  all  life  upon  them  is  sustained. 

The  vast  spiritual-celestial  heavens  of  our  star — 
the  sun — which  forms  the  Celestial  City  of  our  Gk)d, 
hath  in  its  greatest,  or  its  major  equatorial,  diame- 
ter an  extent  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  billions  of  our 
terrestrial  miles,  or  more  than  a  million  and  a  half 
times  the  distance  of  the  earth  from  the  sun,  while 
its  transverse  diameter,  upon  the  same  equatorial 
plane,  is  eighty  billions,  and  its  polaris  diameter  is 
but  four  and  a  half  billions  in  extent,  thus  making 
the  spiritual  heavens,  with  which  we  are  connected, 
present  to  the  eye  the  appearance  of  an  immense 
spheroid  both  ovate  and  prolate  in  form. 

But  this  is  not  all  that  may  be  said  of  its  fair 
and  wonderful  proportions.  Outside  of  this  vast  orb 
and  environing  it  on  every  side  to  the  height  and 
depth  of  twenty-five  billions  of  miles  is  the  vast 
spiritual-celestial  corona — an  unutterable,  divine 
halo  or  glory — a  spiritual-celestial  atmosphere,  pho- 
tosphere and  mento-sphere,  and,  comparing  great 
things  with  small,  resembles  and  corresponds  with 
the  halo  with  which  the  old  painters  invested  the 
head  of  the  beloved  Christ. 

For  all  things  of  the  individual  and  finite  universe 
of  the  microcosm,  have  their  correspondences  and 
greater  prototypes  in  the  more  infinite  macrocosms 
and  in  the  infinite,  absolute  holocosm  of  the  infinite 
God.  Since  the  finite  man  is  but  an  infinitesimal 
copy  of  the  infinite  universes  of  the  living  God,  and 
is  designed  to  lift  up  his  mind  into  a  proper  under- 
standing of  Him,  by  an  easy  and  profound  and  ever 
present  illustration. 


192 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

God  of  the  granite  and  the  rose 
The  molecule  and  the  morning  star, 

Thy  spirit  thro'  all  being  flows 
And  far  is  near  and  near  is  far. 

In  Thine  immensity  of  thought 
All  things  are  born,  and  all  things  die. 
The  eternities  for  Thee  hath  wrought 
Full  many  a  system,  star  and  sky. 

Before  Thy  throne  of  boundless  might 
Man  bows  himself  in  reverent  love. 

But  knows,  in  all  these  worlds  of  light, 
He's  kindred  with  the  stars  above. 

Almighty  Father,  Lord  of  all, 
Teach  us  to  view  with  equal  eye 

The  small  in  great,  the  great  in  small, 
The  wonders  that  about  us  lie. 

S.  A.  Merrill. 
Ocean  Park,  1904. 

"There  is  a  natural  body  and  there  is  a  spiritual 
body  .  .  .  There  are  bodies  celestial  and  bodies 
terrestrial.  But  the  glory  of  the  celestial  is  one 
and  the  glory  of  the  terrestrial  is  another." — Paul. 

"By  which  also  he  (Christ)  went  and  preached 
unto  the  spirits  in  prison." — I.  Peter,  iii.,  19. 

We  quote  the  following,  one  of  the  mistakes  of 
Swedenborg,  from  "Heaven  and  Hell,"  No.  480: 

"That  man  after  death  remains  to  eternity  such 
as  he  is  as  to  his  will  or  reigning  love  has  also  been 
confirmed  by  abundant  experience.     .     .     . 

"To  change  that  love  in  a  spirit  therefore  would 
be  to  deprive  him  of  his  life,  or  to  annihilate  him. 

193 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS, 

They  also  told  the  reason,  namely,  that  man  after 
death  can  no  longer  be  reformed  by  instruction  as 
in  the  world,  because  the  ultimate  plane,  which  con- 
sists of  natural  knowledge  and  affections,  is  then 
quiescent  and  cannot  be  opened,  because  it  is  not 
spiritual;  and  that  upon  that  plane  the  interiors 
which  are  of  the  mind  rest  as  a  house  on  its  founda- 
tion, and  hence  it  is  that  man  remains  to  eternity 
such  as  the  life  of  his  love  had  been  in  the  world." 
The  fatalism  contained  in  this  paragraph  from 
the  great  seer  is  very  much  in  character  with  the 
very  gross  and  exaggerated  statements  in  Theoso- 
phy  concerning  the  doctrine  of  the  Karma. 

In  both  statements  it  is  a  little  more  than  an 
assertion  that  the  leading  attributes  and  functions 
in  the  original  constitution  or  life  of  man  pass 
through  the  various  transformations  that  he  is 
obliged  to  without  any  essential  or  injurious  changes 
therein.  And  this  is  just  what  we  ought  both  to 
desire  and  expect  from  the  very  nature  of  the  law 
that  governs  the  evolution  of  all  beings.  For  man 
is  constantly,  indeed  every  moment,  undergoing 
beneficent  economic  changes  within  himself. 

But  the  greatest  of  the  transforming  influences 
that  go  to  help  him  in  his  efforts  to  effect  any  benefi- 
cent modifications  or  changes  in  his  original  make- 
up are  to  be  found  in  the  supplementary  reincarna- 
tion that  he  undergoes  after  the  decrease  of  the 
animal  body  coupled  with  those  that  take  place 
during  his  long  residence  in  spirit  life  prior  to  the 
next  incarnation  in  terrestrial  states.  But  this  ter- 
restriation,  this  being  reborn  into  the  new  terrestrial 
estates  and  conditions,  and  in  the  holy  being  of 
a  new,  perhaps  a  very  different,  earthly  mother — 
from  the  one  that  presided  over  the  previous  terres- 
triation — becomes  the  very  greatest  of  these  benign 
transforming  influences  that  aid  the  man  in  his 
efforts  to  shape  his  own  destiny. 

Otherwise  he  would  indeed  become  the  victim  of 
a  stern  and  inexorable  fatalism — one  that  would  be 
imposed  upon  him  by  the  otherwise  absolutely  ben- 

194 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

eficent  and  necessary  conservatism  and  durability 
of  his  own  constitutional  make-up — and  one  that 
like  the  uncast  cauda  of  the  young  bactrachean 
steers  from  behind  and  from  inferior  forces  and  with 
retrogressive  rather  than  progressive  results.  There 
is  a  numerous  class  of  mankind — the  vicious  and 
criminal — who  if  they  were  obliged  to  take  up  their 
life  lines  at  the  point  where  they  laid  them  down 
at  the  end  of  their  former  incarnation  in  earth  life 
and  to  follow  them  out  in  the  direction  of  their  life 
tendencies  at  that  time,  as  taught  by  the  gross  and 
absurd  tenets  of  theosophy — that  would  find  them- 
selves moving  nearward  toward  the  monad  and 
ultimate  extinction. 

There  is  no  alternative.  It  is  a  monstrous  fallacy 
and  misconception  of  the  sublime  law  that  governs 
heredity,  environment  and  re-birth,  and  like  the 
Orthodox  and  the  Swedenborgian  conceptions  of  a 
literal  hell,  is  one  of  those  ghostly  and  irrational 
caricatures  of  reason  of  science  and  of  enlightened 
common  sense  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  a 
blind  and  ignorant  past,  when  man  was  in  his  spir- 
itual infancy  and  lived  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
word  from  his  inability  to  perceive  its  true  spiritual 
sense  and  to  understand  the  divine  law  that  is  dimly 
shadowed  forth  in  the  literal  or  symbolical  sense. 

It  is  this  literal  and  imperfect  sense  of  the  Divine 
Word  that  the  great  mass  of  mankind  still  "live 
for  and  have  their  being." 

The  Law  of  Cure. 

In  the  practical  annulment  and  repeal  of  this 
fatalistic  law  and  for  the  uses  of  spirits  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  maladies  of  spirit  life,  the  world  is  in- 
debted much  to  the  old  Greek  philosophers  and  sages, 
and  especially  to  Anaxagoras,  "the  father  of  modern 
science,"  as  he  is  sometimes  called,  who  devoted 
long  years  to  the  study  of  man  in  abnormal  condi- 
tions. He  studied  man  as  he  manifested  himself  in 
all  his  "natural  modes  and  habits  of  action  and  of 

195 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

being,  and  especially  among  those  classes  who,  not 
having  been  reared  under  the  bias  of  any  special 
religious  creed  or  cult,  were  leading  more  natural 
lives  in  the  land  of  the  soul. 

The  seer  Swedenborg  has  in  truth  well  defined 
the  law,  as  we  shall  see,  in  its  general  forms  and 
tendencies,  for  it  is  the  same  law  correspondentially 
and  on  the  material  plane,  that  obliges  one  body  to 
move  on  forever  in  the  direction  of  the  impelling 
force  until  given  a  new  direction  or  brought  to  a 
state  of  rest  by  some  force. 

Swedenborg's  mistake  lay  in  the  fact  that  his  pre- 
conceived (church)  ideas  and  prejudices,  which 
were  those  of  his  principal  spirit  instructor,  St. 
Augustine,  mislead  him.  And  neither  of  them  were 
far  advanced  enough  into  the  laws  of  metaphysi- 
ology  to  comprehend  the  fact  that  one  spirit  can 
temporarily  lend  his  material  body  to  another  for 
hygienic  purposes,  as  one  person  can  temporarily 
loan  his  coat  or  even  a  whole  suit  to  another  to  pro- 
tect him  from  the  inclemencies  of  the  weather.  This 
principle  is  well  illustrated  by  the  methods  em- 
ployed by  the  spiritual  healer  in  the  treatment  of 
the  sick  of  this  life.  He  first  makes  use  of  his  own 
material  organism  to  draw  out  the  poisons  from  that 
of  his  patient,  and  afterward  infuses  a  portion  of 
his  own  purer  magnetisms — spiritual  blood — in 
place  of  it  to  rebuild  his  whole  system,  animal  and 
spiritual,  on  higher,  purer  conditions. 

But  this  ancient  Greek  seer,  noting  the  fact  of  the 
almost  universal  tendency  of  spirits  to  return  and 
remain  upon  the  earth  plane  and  to  mingle  with  the 
inhabitants  of  earth-life  as  far  as  possible,  set  him- 
self to  work  to  study  the  laws  involved  in  the  rela- 
tions established  between  the  two  classes  by  their 
after  intercourse. 

He  observed  the  wonderful  tendency  of  spirits, 
great  numbers  of  them,  to  seek  to  come  into  rapport 
with  cognate  minds,  especially  in  earth-life,  and  that 
many  of  them,  even  of  the  insane,  in  the  course  of 
time  became   relieved   of  their   maladies   incurred 

196 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

during  their  earth  life,  while  such  as  from  ignorance 
of  the  laws  of  control  or  from  injurious  preceptions 
remained  away,  continued  in  the  same  condition  in 
which  they  entered  the  spirit  world. 

If  we  look  a  little  closely  into  this  law  of  mutual 
aid  which  spirits  both  in  the  same  world  and  in 
both  worlds  may  render  each  other — for  there  is 
much  of  mutuality  in  it — and  which  a  spirit  while 
yet  in  the  flesh  may  render  either  knowingly  or  un- 
knowingly, we  shall  see  that  it  is  one  of  the  benign 
arragements  of  Divine  Providence  whereby  man 
as  a  social  being  is  enabled  to  confer  almost  infinite 
benefits  upon  his  fellow.  So  that  there  is  a  profound 
occult  or  hidden  truth  in  the  old  hymn: 

"There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood. 

Drawn  from  Emanuel's  veins, 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  iiiat  flood 
Lose  all  their  guilty  stains." 

But  that  "blood" — ^what  is  it  but  love — the  creator 
and  the  regenerator  of  \\\q  worlds?  What  is  it  but 
those  divine  personal  electro-magnetisms  that  per- 
vade every  part,  organ  and  function  of  the  divine 
man  and  the  divine  woman,  and  not  only  thrill  with 
life  and  with  joy  every  atom  of  their  being,  mental, 
moral,  material,  but  when  rightly  used  are  marvel- 
ously  hygienic  and  medicinal,  not  only  to  their  pos- 
sessor, but  to  all  to  whom  he  may  impart  them? 
Hence  the  marvels  of  healing  by  spiritual  healers 
and  by  mental  and  Christian  Scientists.  They  give 
them  of  this  divine  healing  energy  and  they  are 
made  anew.  But  the  sphere  of  the  true  spiritual 
healer  is  not  confined  to  this  world  alone,  but  ex- 
tends equally  to  the  spirit  world  and  to  all  its  in- 
habitants. 

And  who  is  "Emanuel,"  or  "God  with  us,"  but 
man  himself? 

And  what  is  that  "fountain  filled  with  blood"  but 
the  vast  divine,  holy  infinite  universe  of  the  living 
God? 

197 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

In-  this  way  Anaxagoras  became  cognizant  of  the 
great  law  of  cure — the  law  of  liberty,  of  escape  from 
the  otherwise  fatal  limitations  inherent  in  his  own 
constitution — a  stubborn  and  absolutely  necessary 
and  useful  resistance  to  changes  injurious  to  the 
perpetuity  of  his  existence — and  which  can  only  be 
made  subservient  to  those  radical  changes  that  are 
necessary  under  certain  conditions  to  be  wrought 
in  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  in  order  that  he  may 
get  rid  of  his  sins  and  at  the  same  time  may  escape 
the  fatalism  of  this  law  of  his  being  as  defined  by 
Swedenborg — by  a  proper  use  of  all  those  divine 
social,  spiritual  and  celestial  influences  and  forces 
that  in  the  other  life,  as  well  as  in  the  present,  exert 
their  benign  influence  in  the  changes  and  transfor- 
mations he  is  obliged  to  pass  through  in  both  worlds. 
But  Swedenborg  was  not  cognizant  of  this  law  of 
mind  by  which  man  is  enabled  to  escape  from  the 
fatalistic  tendencies  of  his  own  system,  and  for  the 
simple  reason  that  great  as  he  was,  both  his  own 
preconceived  views  and  his  childlike  reliance  on  the 
absolute  truth  of  the  communications  of  his  spirit 
teachers  prevented  him. 

The  same  is  also  true  of  a  great  portion  of  the 
church  fathers  even  to  this  day,  and  hence  so  many 
of  them  still  adhere  nominally  at  least  to  the  eter- 
nality  of  a  literal  hell. 

The  principles  involved  in  this  law  of  supple- 
mentary reincarnation  and  re-birth — for  that  is  what 
it  is — this  law  of  escape  by  the  spirit  form  the 
tyranny  of  his  own  body — were  first  introduced,  but 
to  a  very  limited  extent,  into  spirit  life  by  the  old 
Greeks,  centuries  in  advance  of  its  more  extensive 
use  in  recent  years.  But  church  influences  and  pre- 
judices were  too  strong  for  its  general  adoption.  The 
church  fathers  in  both  worlds,  living  in  the  literal 
sense  of  the  word,  could  not  regard  the  matter  in 
any  other  light,  since  for  man  in  his  infantile  and 
unscientific  spiritual  estates,  as  he  then  was,  it  was 
unavoidable,  and  best  indeed  that  he  should  be. 

Our  Father  in  Heaven  imparts  his  laws  to  his  in- 

io8 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

fant  spiritual  children  on  the  earth  as  commands, 
in  the  same  manner  and  for  a  like  reason  that  an 
earthly  parent  issues  his  authoritative  command  to 
his  child :  "Keep  out  of  the  fire !"  while  he  is  yet  in 
his  infancy  and  of  too  little  understanding  and  ex- 
perience to  comprehend  the  real  nature  of  the 
danger. 

There  are  great  and  infinite  dangers  to  be  met, 
resisted  and  overcome  by  man  with  all  the  "might, 
mind  and  strength"  of  which  he  is  capable,  assisted 
by  the  angels  and  even  God  himself. 

And  hence  the  frequent  and  fervent  admonitions 
of  the  Christ:  "Strive  to  enter  in  at  the  straight 
gate;  for  many,  I  say  unto  you,  shall  seek  to  enter 
in,  but  shall  not  be  able."  And  this  caution  was 
far  more  necessary  to  place  before  man  in  an  im- 
perative form  at  that  time  when  he  was  in  a  more 
childish  and  barbarous  condition,  than  for  those 
living  to-day,  who  better  understand  the  laws  of 
being. 

"There  be  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than 
dreamed  of  in  our  philosophies." — Horatio. 

If  now  we  follow  the  decarnated  man  into  his 
higher  post-terrestrial  life,  we  find  that  in  accord- 
ance with  the  important  law  of  metampsychosis  he 
puts  off  his  spiritual  body — as  is  well  known  to 
spiritualists — and  appears  in  another,  which  is  even 
more  beautiful  and  refined  in  its  character  than  is 
the  spiritual  one.  This  is  the  celestial  body  of  man, 
and  it  is  quite  as  "invisible"  to  the  spiritual  man  as 
the  latter  is  to  the  terrestrial  man.  It  sustains  a 
similar  relation  also  to  the  spiritual  body  that  this 
one  does  to  the  terrestrial. 

The  time  of  the  putting  off,  or  death,  of  the  spir- 
itual body  takes  place  about  the  time  of  his  attain- 
ing the  fifteenth  sphere,  and  forms  one  of  the  danger 
points  for  s^ich  as  have  lived  a  too  gross  and  impure 
life  while  in  the  flesh.  For  if  his  earth  life  has  been 
too  much  on  the  animal  plane,  the  spiritual  body 
and  the  celestial  body  also  become  so  weighed  down 
and  perverted  in  their  character  by  the  material, 

199 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

moral  and  spiritual  poisons  the  man  has  incorpo- 
rated within  his  whole  system  that  after  he  has  cast 
off  the  two  outer  vestments  or  bodies  he  finds  him- 
self in  too  weak  and  demoralized  a  state  to  well  com- 
plete the  long  cycle  upon  which  he  has"  entered  or 
to  easily  pass  through  the  ''narrow  gate"  that  mark^ 
the  transition  from  the  celestial  to  the  terrestrial  life 
at  the  next  incarnation.    Such  weaklings  find  much 
difficulty  in  making  this  transition.     But  such  trials 
in  the  life  of  man  spiritual  belong  now  chiefly  to 
the  past  and  to  those  who  still  cling  too  tenaciously 
to  the  ideas  and  methods  of  the  past.     Science  is 
accomplishing  wonders   in    freeing   man   from   the 
shackles  of  ignorance,  bigotry  and  sin  in  spirit  life, 
even  the  very  worst,  and  preparing  him  in  no  very 
great  time  to  begin  his  triumphal  march  toward  the 
eternal  city !     It  has  removed  the  barriers  which 
ignorance  and  superstition  have  so  long  interposed 
against  free  progress  and  abolished  the  "thousand 
year"  cycle  during  which  the  lower  classes  of  spirits 
have  been  obliged  to  remain  on  the  earth  plane  to 
get  rid  of  the  detaining  forces  that  hold  "earth  bound 
spirits"  for  the  lack  of  that  knowledge,  sympathy 
and  help  which  he  can  now  obtain  from  the  great 
souls  who  are  prosecuting  this  war  against  igno- 
rance, darkness  and  crime,  those  who  in  the  past, 
from  the  gross  conditions  of  their  spiritual  bodies, 
have  been  obliged  to  remain  on  the  lower  planes, 
where  they  can  have  free  access  to  the  earth  forces 
and  that  was  really  the  best  for  them  in  every  way 
at  that  time — at  the  end  of  this  long  so-called  "thou- 
sand year"  term,  which  is  not  an  arbitrary  period  of 
time,  become  enabled  at  last  to  progress  out  of  the 
lower  spheres  and  to  be  able  to  cast  off  the  spirit 
body  in  one  of  the  higher  spheres. 

This  is  what  is  implied  in  Revelations  xx.,  5,  6, 
as  the  "Second  Resurrection."  His  contemporaries 
in  the  flesh  life,  however,  who  entered  spirit  life 
about  the  time  he  did  but  under  more  normal  con- 
ditions and  started  upon  the  long  journey  soon  after 
their  entrance,  have  passed  the  danger  point  by  the 

200 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

''First  Resurrection."  For,  as  stated  by  the  intelli- 
gent angel  who  was  showing  John  "these  things" 
"over  such  the  Second  Death" — the  putting  off  of 
the  spiritual  body — ''hath  no  power."  John,  not  well 
understanding  these  instructions  of  the  angels,  has 
stated  the  subject  in  a  somewhat  inverted  form. 

Uncounted  millions  of  the  low  orders  of  spirits 
an  many  that  are  not  so  low,  prefer  to  remain  upon 
the  terrestrial  planes  of  existence  and  pass  through 
all  the  necessary  transformations  there  and  remain 
there  still  for  long  ages,  and  are  very  useful  to  the 
higher  creative  Gods  in  the  labors  of  world  building 
and  other  important  offices.  They  are  the  classes 
that  theosophists  call  "elements"  and  "elementaries" 
and  are  indispensable,  as  stated  in  much  of  the  la- 
bors performed  by  the  higher  spirits  in  the  building, 
unbuilding  and  rebuilding  of  world.  They  have  also 
great  power  over  the  elements.  Hence  the  name 
elementals.  It  was  such  spirits  that  carried  out  the 
commands  of  the  Master  when  he  "rebuked  the 
winds  and  the  sea,  and  there  was  a  great  calm." 
There  are  plenty  of  authentic  examples  that  have 
come  down  to  us  both  by  history  and  tradition  in 
which  human  lives  and  weak  and  struggling  human 
causes  have  been  saved  by  this  very  useful  and 
worthy  people.  In  past  times  they  have  often  ap- 
peared to  sensitive  people,  so  that  tradition  is  not 
wrong  in  telling  us  of  gnomes,  elves,  fairies  and  such 
folks.  For  a  time  there  is  no  place  in  earth,  heaven 
or  even  space  itself  where  man,  the  ubiquitous  being, 
may  not  normally  reside. 

We  have  conversed  with  some  of  these  spirits, 
who  have  great  wisdom  and  power.  It  is  not  in- 
tended by  the  guides  of  our  civilization  that  man- 
kind in  general  shall  have  intercourse  with  these 
classes  of  spirits,  and  especially  the  people  of  our 
own  race,  lest  they,  like  the  Hindus,  many  of  them, 
also  fall  into  the  practice  of  the  arts  of  "black 
magic."  And  that  is  the  reason  also  why  spirit  in- 
tercourse has  been  practically  suppressed  by  the 
church  for  long  ages  and  not  permitted  again  until 

201 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  THE  KOSMOS. 

1837,  when  it  was  at  last  introduced  among  the 
Shakers,  and  continued  with  them  for  seven  years, 
when  the  presiding  spirit  intelHgences  left  them,  but 
before  doing  so  informed  them  that  it  was  for  the 
purpose  of  "opening  up  communication  with  skep- 
tics and  doubting  Christians."  It  was  this  class 
that  was  intended  to  be  reached  in  this  way  by  the 
guides  of  civilization,  by  permitting  the  "doubting 
Thomases"  in  human  life,  who  cannot  believe  in  a 
spirit  man  or  a  spirit  world  on  the  second  hand  evi- 
dence of  other  people,  but  must  have  some  present 
this  year  facts  of  their  own  before  they  can  be  sat- 
isfied. 

Still,  the  spiritual  heavens  are  practically  closed 
to  a  large  class  of  mankind,  especially  in  the 
churches,  and  will  likely  so  remain  until  after  the 
gerat  revolution  that  shall  establish  socialism  and 
the  divine  eternal  equality  and  brotherhood  of  man, 
at  which  time  the  more  spiritual  order  of  civilization, 
the  millenium,  will  be  inaugurated  and  established. 
And  it  is  very  near  at  hand.  The  entire  heavens 
dawn  with  the  light  of  the  new  era. 


iThe  End. 


202 


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